


The Sad Dad Club

by mousefrnk



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Casual Sex, Depression, F/M, Food, Hook-Up, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Past Drug Use, References to Drugs, Tags Contain Spoilers, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 14:32:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 85,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousefrnk/pseuds/mousefrnk
Summary: Ex-frontman Frank Iero is a single dad in New Jersey doing his best to raise his three girls. He meets Ray and Gerard, two dads with sons in the same class as one of his girls. Along with Gerard’s brother Mikey (who is soon to be a dad himself), they make plans to hang out every Friday, asking each other for advice and getting some much-needed adult social interaction. Thus, the Sad Dad Club is born.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Bandom Big Bang 2018, and beta'd by the incomparable [Bethany](http://birdthany.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Please do yourself a favor and listen to the complementary playlist made by my incredible wife, which you can find [here](http://walktooblivion.tumblr.com/post/180611733162/friday-night-a-playlist-for-mousefrnks-the). I haven't stopped listening to it since she finished it. 
> 
> This fic has been a labor of love, and like it was a real life labor, I am very proud to present my child to you. I'll save all my emotions for the end. See you there.

Gerard had woken up from a nightmare. He was used to Hunter having them, used to having to wake his kid up from a world that made him whimper with fright, even in his sleep. Once upon a time, he’d even been used to having his own. The nightmares had plagued him every night, contributing greatly to his insomnia. After he got on sleep meds and worked with his doctor to get on a regular sleep schedule, they had thankfully become fewer and farther between. Still, his nightmares had haunted him so badly that when he and Darcy had found out they were pregnant, he had hoped with all of his heart that their child wouldn’t inherit them.

Unfortunately, both his and Hunter’s nightmares had gotten worse since Darcy’s death.

It didn’t matter that the nightmares put Gerard in a world that wasn’t the real one, and it didn’t matter that Darcy was already gone, or that they’d known the end was coming for her. His nightmares didn’t give a shit about any of that.

When he sat up, sweat all down his back, he was panting, his long brown hair stuck to his forehead and in his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that last part, because he just thought he couldn’t see (which was odd considering that his dream hadn’t involved blindness). He figured it out once he blinked and felt strands of hair get caught in his lashes, and he pushed his hair back with an exasperated sigh at his own stupidity.

Gerard looked at the clock and saw that it was almost six in the morning. He was supposed to wake up in a little over half an hour, but there would be no getting back to sleep for him now, anyways. He could hear Hunter’s squeaky snore coming from the tiny cot in the corner of the room and he smiled to himself. At least he was still sleeping soundly.

Reaching his arms over his head, Gerard stretched, barely keeping himself from groaning at the series of pops from his spine. He absolutely had to get beds for them this week. Mikey had offered to let him sleep on the couch, but he hadn’t felt right taking up more space than the spare room, even if it was his brother’s apartment. That somehow made it worse — it wasn’t like Gerard needed charity, he just needed a little bit of help getting his head on straight after the last year. As if he could sense that Gerard was flailing on his own, Mikey had invited them to move in with him for a while, and if there was anything that would make Gerard feel better it was being around his brother. Even if his brother was barely home. He had expected that, mostly because Mikey had told him. “Gerard,” he had said, “I’m barely even home.”

He pushed himself off of the floor and stretched again, this time with his hands down towards his toes. His back cracked all at once in at least twenty places, and Gerard blinked sleepily down at the floor. He was definitely getting them beds. Creeping towards the door, he stepped on a spot on the floor that let out a long creak as soon as he put his weight on it and he grimaced, looking over at his sleeping son to see if he was awake. Hunter just sighed and rolled over, his bunny still wrapped up in his arms. Letting himself out of the room, Gerard quietly closed the door behind him and exhaled in relief.

“You’re up early.”

Gerard jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice, very nearly letting out a curse, but it was just Mikey, standing ominously at the end of the hallway. They had both been rather creepy when they were younger, but Gerard had mostly grown out of it. Mikey still looked like a vampire, though, especially when he stood at the end of a hallway, backlit by the kitchen light so that all Gerard could see of him was his silhouette. If he didn’t know any better, and if he didn’t know his brother so well, he would probably suspect that he actually was some kind of supernatural creature.

“Shit, Mikey, warn me next time.”

Mikey, who was still dressed in the clothes Gerard had seen him leave in the night before, just flipped on the hall light and grinned at his brother’s blinking face, then quirked an eyebrow.

“You want me to warn you next time you wake up that I might be walking around in my apartment?”

Gerard, who loved his brother very, very much, seriously considered how much he actually needed to live in the same apartment as him. If he called the real estate broker, he could maybe get his studio in Seattle back, if she hadn’t already sold it. If he moved back, maybe, just maybe, he could get through the rest of the year without murdering his bratty little brother. But then, there was Hunter’s school to think of, because it had already started back in Seattle, and Gerard had promised Darcy that he would make sure Hunter ended up with a good education, even if it was just a high school diploma from a decent school before he decided he wanted to travel the world. It wouldn’t do to mess up that education before it even started.

Mikey seemed to sense the rabbit hole Gerard had fled down because he snapped his fingers to get his attention and motioned for Gerard to follow him into the kitchen. As if Gerard’s undying devotion to his brother wasn’t enough of a reason to follow him, Mikey called over his shoulder, “I brewed a pot of coffee.” Forget murdering him, Gerard was going to make a statue of his likeness and petition to have it put up in a park, or a museum. Mikey was a hero.

After Gerard sat down on one of the barstools with a fresh cup of coffee, he sipped at it for a solid minute before he felt human enough have a conversation.

“So, did you have fun last night?”

Mikey nodded, dumping a hefty amount of Kahlua into his own cup and stirring. He said it helped him wind down after work, and Gerard understood that, even if he had personally hated the taste of that specific kind of liquor back when he’d been drinking. It was far too sweet.

“Yeah, it was fun, at least as much as any day at work can be.”

Gerard frowned. Mikey’s job sounded exhausting to him, though he supposed being a club promoter would seem like a fun job to a lot of people. Gerard was exhausted by crowds and even more exhausted by young people and that weird dance music they were listening to. Mikey’s job seemed like something he would never have fun doing in a million years. He hummed in thought, nursing his coffee, but ended up nodding. His opinion wasn’t exactly Mikey’s, despite the similarities between them. Where Mikey was quiet until you got to know him, he actually liked being around people.

The two of them lapsed into comfortable silence as Mikey joined him at the counter. Gerard felt almost jittery, the remnants of the nightmare still flickering through his thoughts, although the longer he was awake, the less he could remember of it. All he knew was that Darcy, Gerard’s sweet best friend who had been just as eccentric as he, had died a horrible death- one even more horrible than the slow death that she had actually suffered. He itched to drink, even though he had been sober for years, but what he really wanted was a cigarette.

“Do you have any smokes?”

Mikey frowned at him from over his coffee cup. “I thought you quit.”

“I did. And then, you know.” Gerard waved a hand in the air, knowing Mikey would get it without him having to say it out loud. “I just smoke when I’m stressed.”

“Which is like, always.”

“Nah, it isn’t.”

Mikey raised an eyebrow like he had a protest for that, but didn’t say anything, just sipped his coffee and swirled it around in his coffee cup. He did not, however, pull out a cigarette for Gerard. Mikey was the worst.

Gerard rolled his eyes and looked down at the countertop, focusing on the grout between the tiles. He rubbed his chin, feeling the beginnings of a beard that wasn’t at all intentional, and made a mental note to shave before leaving the house. When Mikey spoke, Gerard turned to look at him, mouth hanging open until he finally understood that he’d asked whether Hunter was excited for school.

“Oh, I think so, yeah. Darcy always talked to him about the day he’d be big enough to go to school, so I think that’s kind of stuck with him. He still says it. Watch, when he gets up, ask him why he gets to go to school now.”

Mikey pulled an amused face at that and drained his coffee. Gerard followed suit and then got up to refill both of their cups, glancing at the clock on the coffee pot as he did so. It still wasn’t time to wake Hunter, and it wouldn’t be for another hour or so. He could probably actually get some work done before then, if he could focus. Mikey stood up after Gerard filled his cup, stretching and then heading down the hall towards his room, almost like he could tell that Gerard was already thinking about work.

“Glad you’re here, Gee.”

“I’m glad we’re here, too.” Gerard smiled weakly at him and nodded, even though Mikey couldn’t see it. He repeated the phrase to himself, quieter this time, as if testing the truth of it by how much it weighed in his mouth. “Glad we’re here, too.”

He found that it was actually mostly true, given the circumstances.

* * *

“Izzy!”

Frank called up the stairs as he tried to get Gemma into a sweater, knowing full well that she was going to attempt to take it off before they even left the house.

“What!” Frank knew the answer his oldest daughter shouted down from her room wasn’t a question so much as an irritated response- She knew exactly why her dad was calling her, but wasn’t remotely interested in doing what she was supposed to be doing.

“Come downstairs.” Frank schooled his tone into a happy sounding one for Gemma’s sake. The tiny blonde hated yelling, and she hated when her family wasn’t happy. It had been a difficult few months for Gemma Iero.

He still didn’t hear any movement from upstairs indicating that Izzy was on her way down, so he called for her again, this time in a singsong voice that almost sounded pleasant. “No-ow.”

Gemma giggled and he heard a frustrated groan filter down the stairs. He didn’t have time to wonder why the oldest Iero was so grumpy, not when he heard a crash from the kitchen. Scooping Gemma into his arms, he ran towards the noise, fearing the worst. Olly was kneeling on the counter, a massive frown on her face. The box of cereal that she had been trying to get down was spilt across the floor next to a box of pans he’d yet to unpack.

“Olivia Grace, what did I tell you about climbing on the counters?” He set Gemma down and moved towards the counter, hands outstretched just in case Olly fell.

“But Dad—”

“No, no buts. You ask for help or you wait.”

“You could just get her a step stool.” The sound of Izzy’s voice came from the door to the kitchen and Frank noted that she had hurried downstairs when her sister’s well-being was in question. It was nice to see she did care about something that mattered, even if she liked to pretend that she didn’t.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerely, not looking up at her as he helped Olly down from her perch on the counter. “Your input will be considered by the appropriate authorities.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Frank smiled at his oldest daughter’s sass and looked up at her only to do a double-take when he realized what she was wearing. His frown faded. He hadn’t seen her try to wear that skirt in two summers and she had grown half a foot since then.

“No, what’s ridiculous is that skirt, _Isabella_. That is not what we agreed you’d wear on your first day of middle school.”

“Don’t be so prehistoric, Dad.”

“Great vocabulary word, bad wardrobe. Go change.”

“No!” She sounded scandalized in that way that only adolescent girls seemed to be able to master, and Frank sighed.

“Izzy, we don’t have time for this. If I let you go to school in that, they will call me to come pick you up, and I can’t leave work early, so you’ll end up wearing your gym shorts all day.” He fixed her with a stare, one eyebrow raised as he kneeled to start gathering up cereal pieces. “Do you really want to be that sixth grader that wore gym clothes on the first day of school?”

They stared at each other, the other two Iero girls scooting around the floor behind Frank trying to clean up the cereal mess. Eventually Izzy rolled her eyes, and he noticed that she was wearing eyeliner. Even though his chest hurt at how grown up she was getting, he decided not to pick that battle.

“Fine.” Izzy threw up her hands in a way that reminded Frank painfully of his ex-wife. “But you should know that I object on account of how sexist the dress code is.”

“I don’t know how you know that, but I fully support your battle, should it come to that, just not today. Please go change.”

“Fine, I said fine already didn’t I?”

“Izzy.” There was a warning in his tone. He really didn’t have time to continue arguing with her, not today. She didn’t reply, just marched up the stairs, and he sighed in relief.

“Daddy.”

Frank turned towards his toddler and found her holding out a handful of cereal for him to take.

“Aw, thank you, Gemmy.” He took the cereal from her, wiping a few sticky pieces off of her hand, and then dumped the handful into the trash can. He turned to his middle daughter and nudged her with his elbow. “Olly, what do you say to your sister for helping clean up your mess?”

“Thanks, Gemma.”

“Good job. Gemma, what do you say?”

Gemma mumbled something that maybe sounded like “Welcome, Olly” if he squinted, or whatever the auditory equivalent of squinting was.

Manners were something Frank found himself working on with every single one of his daughters constantly, though he’d thought Izzy had grown out of that stage. It was like the older she got, the more she forgot what she’d been taught when she was little. Sometimes it seemed like the younger two were getting the hang of it far more easily than she was.

Frank picked the box of pans up and returned it to the counter, careful not to let the bottom of the box fall out as he did.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Olly was still frowning and he frowned in response. He hated that she was only five years old and had already worried about things so much that a frown seemed almost natural on her tiny features.

“It’s okay, baby. It wasn’t your fault. Maybe we’ll actually get a step-stool.”

“Really?” She sounded thrilled at the prospect, and he tucked one of her wild curls behind her ear.

“Really.”

Her frown gave way to the smile that he far preferred. The simplest things made her happy, and he missed when things had been that easy with Izzy. As he thought of her, he heard her stomping down the stairs again, sounding far louder than he’d ever expected her to be able to with her small stature. Izzy came into the kitchen wearing the previously dad-approved skirt and he nodded.

“Better.”

“Cool, can we go now?” The tone of Izzy’s voice made it sound like she hadn’t been the last one down the stairs, and he chose to ignore it rather than rise to it. Instead, he opened a few of the cupboards in search of the box of toaster pastries and pulled out two packs, handing one to each of his two eldest daughters. He knew that Olly wouldn’t eat a full pack, and he and Gemma would share whatever was left on the way to his mom’s house. Frank ignored the look of disgust on Izzy’s face at the choice of breakfast. The girls’ mom had always made breakfast for Izzy on the first day of school, which she and Frank both knew, though neither of them said anything about it.

“Alright, Ieros. Into the car. First one there gets to pick the music.” The contest always made them hurry, and the exit to the car was a flurry of high pitched voices and arguing about who actually made it to the car first. It was a miracle that all three of his girls ended up buckled in the car in one piece without any torn clothing. As Frank backed out of the garage, he couldn’t help but think how much calmer mornings had been back when he and Nat had been together. He pushed the thought out of his head as he closed the garage door. He definitely didn’t have time to think about that.

“Uh, dad?”

“Yeah, Izzy?” His voice was distracted as he focused on turning at the end of their street.

“Did you forget to pack us lunches?”

“Fuck.”

* * *

“Did you get the forms filled out?”

“Yes, Dawn.”

“And you remembered to bring them? You didn’t forget the forms at home?”

“No, I didn’t forget them. I put them in Noah’s backpack myself.”

“You’re sure?” The curt voice coming from Ray’s phone made him hesitate. He wondering if the question was even worth an actual answer or if she was just going to second-guess him. Again.

“I’m sure.”

“What about the ones for Logan?”

“What ones for Logan?”

“Ray.” The sharpness in her tone couldn’t be ignored, and Ray had to literally bite his tongue to keep from retorting something he probably should not say within earshot of the kids. He tried to mimic her tone when he replied, hoping that he managed to make it half as cutting as hers.

“Dawn.”

“Ray, please don’t tell me you managed to mess this up.”

“There were no permission slips for Logan.”

“Yes, there were—"

“There weren’t. I checked, and then I checked again, and then I emailed his teacher, just to confirm.”

“Oh.”

Ray rolled his eyes even though his wife couldn’t see him over the phone. “Come on, I know that you don’t believe in me or any of my abilities, but even I know how important the boys’ school is.”

He could practically hear the start of Dawn’s migraine through the phone, and he couldn’t help but feel a small tinge of glee at having that effect on her. “Please, don’t start.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She sighed at this, and he held his tongue, satisfied for the moment.

“Can you hand the phone to the boys so that I can talk to them before they go in?”

“Got it.” He pulled the phone away from his head, hitting the speakerphone button and turning to hand the phone to Logan as he lowered the volume of the music they’d demanded on the way to school. “Mommy wants to talk to you guys.”

“Hi Mommy!” There was chorus of singsong greetings and Ray tuned out of the conversation, staring out the windshield and watching other parents take their kids inside to their new classrooms. He knew that he could take a little longer because he knew exactly where Logan’s classroom was, and Noah’s kindergarten teacher was the same one Logan had been with two years earlier. There was no way they were getting lost or being late, not on his watch. He started listening to the conversation between his kids and his wife — the term was an oversimplification of the situation, but his ‘estranged wife’ just sounded ridiculous — right about the time that Noah asked the question Ray had been dreading all morning.

“Mommy? Why aren’t you here with us for the first day of school?”

He heard Dawn clear her throat, her brain probably stuck as she tried to come up with an answer. The two of them hadn’t figured out how best to explain the situation to their boys, not until they knew what the end result was going to be. There was no point in stressing them out about being separated if they were just going to get back together in a few weeks or months, and if it was the end (a possibility which Ray wasn’t even remotely considering), then that had to be approached a little more delicately.

He glanced at Logan and Noah’s faces in the rearview mirror and frowned. Neither of them had the attention span to focus on anything other than cartoons for longer than two seconds but now, now they were completely zeroed in on Dawn’s voice, or the absence of it. Ray let her falter for a second longer, wanting to see what she would come up with when pressed, but he jumped in to save her after she only managed to stutter the beginning to a few half-hearted excuses.

“Hey, you guys, we talked about this.” He turned in his seat, clicking his seatbelt off. “Your mom is off fighting monsters and she’s got a city to save.”

The boys looked confused at first, but then Logan’s face cleared and he smiled, Noah following suit as soon as he saw his brother’s grin.

“If she were here, you would have to deal with some giant mutant dude smashing your school, and that would be so NOT COOL OF MOMMY.”

The boys were both giggling, and even Dawn was laughing, a little. Ray felt a wave of relief rush through him. Crisis averted.

“We have to go to class now, Mommy. Say bye to Mommy, boys.”

“Bye Mommy! Love you!”

“Goodbye. I love you. Have a good day at school.”

Ray hung up the phone amid choruses of goodbyes and love you’s that he knew would last forever if he didn’t call it.

“Alright, who’s ready for school?”

Where Ray had hugged and kissed Logan at the door to his second grade classroom, he couldn’t bring himself not to stay for the first part of Noah’s very first day of kindergarten. Noah led him into the room, still clutching at his hand, which was the only clue Ray had that his kid was nervous. He saw several other parents standing around with their own kids, a few of whom he recognized from other school functions in past years. Noah led him through the desks and Ray checked all the name tags taped to the tops until they found one that said Noah’s name.

“Look, buddy, this one’s yours.”

“Who am I with?” The desks were in pairs, which Ray assumed or at least hoped would cut down on distraction. Of course Noah was interested in who he was sitting next to.

“Let’s see — you’re sitting next to…” He paused to crane his neck a little, trying to read the letters. “Olivia. Do we know an Olivia?”

Noah touched his chin like he was lost in thought. It was obviously a gesture he’d learned from Ray and it was so funny to see on his tiny face. He was almost like a miniature Ray, at least in facial features. His hair was the same color, but his ringlets were more relaxed than Ray’s, more like the texture of Dawn’s hair. Still, it was adorable to see him acting so much like a grown-up.

“Um. Do I know… Did you say Olivia?”

“Yes?”

Ray and Noah both looked up at the voice and saw a small girl, just a little shorter than Noah. Her hair, pulled back in two pigtails, was dark, but her eyes were bright. She was smiling shyly at them before she turned around, seeming to look for someone.

“Are you Olivia? If you are, I sit here, and you sit next to me.” Noah’s eyes were wide behind his glasses as he watched her, and she turned around to look behind her, her expression still a bit uncertain. Ray glanced over her shoulder to try and find whoever she had been looking for, and he saw a dark haired man with the same eyes walk through the door holding a sleepy toddler. Ray caught his eye and waved, watching the man visibly relax in relief as he spotted the girl standing in front of the Toros, and Ray had to grin. He’d been there before, definitely.

“Um, actually, my family calls me Olly.”

“Olly? That’s so cool. I’m Noah, and this is my dad!” Ray looked on with interest as his son held out his tiny hand for her to shake, smiling when she reached hers out too. The man Ray had seen before joined them, and Ray followed his kid’s lead.

“Ray Toro.” He held out his hand. “You must be Olly’s…” Ray trailed off because families could be anything these days and he didn’t want to assume, but Olly filled in the blank.

“Dad! This is Noah, and this is Noah’s dad. Noah sits here and I sit there.”

“Really? Olly, that’s awesome.” The guy looked back up to see Ray still holding out his hand and hurriedly shook it, somehow juggling his toddler to his other arm because Ray had held out the wrong hand. “Frank. Iero.” His last name was added as an afterthought and Ray raised an eyebrow and tipped his head to the side. He knew that name.

“No shit.” He blanched as he realized they were in a kindergarten classroom, but glancing around, no other parents seemed to be glaring at him, and Frank looked amused. However, their two kids were staring up at him with wide eyes and mouths agape though and Ray grimaced. “Oh, uh, sorry, guys. I mean— no way. I think our moms go to church together. You were in a band, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I was. I mean… It was a while ago.” Frank shrugged, and Ray grinned.

“That’s so cool. I always wanted to be in a band.”

Frank laughed, the sound almost nervous, and nodded, and then the bell rang. Ray motioned for Noah to come sit down at his desk, and Noah immediately began to play with a bubble in the tape keeping his name tag stuck to the surface. Though people still walked around the room, parents trying to help their kindergartners find their desks, overall the crowd grew quiet and looked up towards the teacher, a bright eyed woman in a dark blue dress that Ray knew from two years past was named Miss Kay. Ray hadn’t figured out if that was her first name or last name, but he didn’t think it really mattered.

The parents didn’t stay for long — there was a quick introduction and a speech from Miss Kay about how excited she was for the school year, and then there were hugs goodbye, and a few tears (mostly from the parents, specifically a long-haired dad of a child at the group of desks in front of Noah’s), and then they headed out, leaving their kids to their education.

Frank and Ray parted ways in the parking lot, waving, and Ray decided he would have to invite him over for a beer or something during the school year. Then he went to work, patting himself on the back for a job well-done. Contrary to Dawn’s apparent expectations, he hadn’t actually screwed up the kids’ first day of school. It was an accomplishment, even if it didn’t feel like it was all that impressive.

* * *

Gerard had been living with Mikey for all of five days and he was already getting on Mikey’s last nerve. It wasn't as if Mikey had a lot of nerves to begin with, or like Gerard hadn't always been neurotic. Once upon a time, Mikey had known how to deal with him, but Mikey was out of practice, and Gerard was a dad now, and not only did he have neuroses, but so did his kid.

Mikey loved Hunter, but the kid was definitely Gerard’s. He didn’t look a whole lot like him, though Mikey supposed that would probably change with time. Gerard insisted that Hunter had the same eyes as him, and it might be half-true, or true about the shape, but Mikey couldn’t get over the odd color of them to see it. Hunter had one hazel eye and one that was completely and unmistakably brown, and it was one of Mikey’s favorite things about his nephew. It just meant that Hunter didn’t look like Gerard, not to him, especially not around the eyes.

Whatever Hunter lacked in physical similarities between him and his dad, he more than made up for in behaviors. He had nightmares, just like Gerard had, and he loved to get his hands dirty when it involved paint or clay. Mikey had several of his drawings up on the fridge, pictures that had been mailed across the country because Hunter insisted that they were made specifically for Mikey. It was sweet, and touched Mikey more than he would admit aloud, though each and every drawing had been kept and displayed for anyone to see, and he supposed that said enough about how he really felt.

Like his father, Hunter got attached to something and held onto it, both emotionally and physically, for far longer than anyone else. It was something Gerard had never really grown out of, though the behavior was more normal for Hunter, seeing as he was only five. The object in question was Bunny, a stuffed animal that he had gotten from his mom when he was a baby. Darcy had it made just for him, with one green eye and one brown, just like Hunter, and he had grown up being called her bunny boy. Bunny had been a part of every trip and every birthday and every family event just as long as Hunter had.

Mikey understood why he had clung to it so hard, he really did. Darcy wasn’t with them anymore, and that had to be hard for Hunter, even if they had all known she was sick for a really long time – basically as long as Hunter had been alive. But that didn’t mean he knew where the damn bunny was, and Hunter was sitting on the couch sobbing because they couldn’t find it. Gerard was being absolutely no help, but it was worse than that, because he was actually exacerbating the problem, his voice high and tight as he grilled Mikey on where it could have possibly ended up.

Mikey had thought he was being helpful. Gerard tended to get lost in whatever he was working on and he’d been in a flow all day since getting home from dropping Hunter off at school. Mikey had volunteered to do the afternoon pick-up so that Gerard wouldn’t have to break away from his work and lose his focus, and everything had gone mostly smoothly. He had been on the list of approved guardians when Hunter’s teacher checked, he had taken Hunter to get frozen yogurt as an afternoon snack slash celebration of his first successful day of school, been careful not to let his nephew get any toppings that would trigger his mild and yet very annoying nut allergy, and when they’d gotten home, he had tried to put him down for a nap. Obviously, that hadn’t gone over very well, and Mikey, who had only been trying to help, was now being screeched at by Gerard and Hunter.

It was worth noting that the two of them kind of sounded the same when they were shrieking at Mikey. Another thing Hunter had apparently inherited from his dad.

“I just don’t understand. Where could it have gone?” Gerard wasn’t even looking at him, but he managed to direct his voice in Mikey’s direction just fine as he went through Hunter’s backpack for the second time, third if Mikey counted the time he had done it before even alerting Gerard about the missing bunny.

“It could be in the car.” It could also be back at school, or Hunter could have left it at the froyo place, but Mikey didn’t say any of that for fear Gerard might send him on a wild goose chase around the city to try and find it. Instead, he shrugged and leaned back against the wall, feeling entirely too drained for this situation but not really willing to disengage from it. He was, after all, the person who had lost the bunny in question. Who cared if he hadn’t slept all night, or all day, or that he was supposed to have dinner with his girlfriend before going back out to work? His window for his own nap was closing faster than he could stop it.

“Well, do you mind going to check?” Gerard still hadn’t even looked up, and Hunter’s sobs were only getting more frantic. Mikey didn’t respond, just pulled himself up from the wall and moved to get his keys, hesitating for a second as he considered taking his smokes too. When his nephew let out a particularly loud screech, he sighed and grabbed them. His nerves were going to be in tatters before the week was out.

Mikey took his time heading downstairs to the parking lot. He lit a cigarette and took a drag before he was even out of the stairwell completely, even though that was technically against the rules of the apartment complex. He was supposed to wait until he was fifty feet away from any door, but he thought they might forgive him given that he could still hear Hunter crying from the parking lot.

His feet took him on autopilot over to where he usually parked his car, but he’d given Gerard that space since it was closer to the apartment. His own space, which he had to pay extra for, was at the other end of the parking lot, and he obviously wasn’t used to parking there yet. After he redirected himself, he leaned against his car, finishing his cigarette before he even bothered looking for the missing stuffed animal.

Mikey had no idea what he was going to do if he couldn’t find the bunny. It was such an important part of Hunter’s childhood, one of the most meaningful things he’d ever received from his mom, and Mikey wasn’t terribly sentimental about objects, but he understood that it was too valuable to lose. The bunny wasn’t something Mikey could replace, or even try to. He threw his cigarette butt to the ground and ground it out with his toe, already sighing in preparation to have to go back upstairs and deliver the news that no, Bunny wasn’t in the car, and no, Mikey had no idea what had happened to it.

When he opened the car, the stupid fucking bunny was sitting in the middle of the backseat, buckled into the seat belt. Hunter must have done that on the way home, and it was just like Gerard and therefore just like his kid to do something and then not remember doing it at all. Mikey sighed, and cursed under his breath, and then sighed again. He had to forgive them, both of them. It wasn’t either of their faults that they were so absent-minded about some things, Mikey knew that, he just wished it wasn’t at his expense. He reached into the backseat and unbuckled the stuffed bunny, tucking it safely under his arm as he locked the car again and then headed back up to the apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

“Olly.”

Frank could see that Gemma was asleep in her car seat and it was silent but for Izzy messing with the radio from the passenger seat. Frank reached up to tilt the rearview mirror in the direction of his middle daughter so he could see just what she was doing, as she was obviously not paying attention to anything that was going on inside the car.

“Olly.” He tried again, but continued to get no response. When he tried again, his voice came out in a bit of a song, stretching out her entire first name instead of the nickname she was so fond of. “Oliiiiviiiiiaaaa.”

“Hmm?” She finally turned her head to look at him, a dreamy expression across her face.

“Can you please stop kicking the back of my seat?”

“Oh.” She let out a heavy sigh as her legs stopped moving, and he wondered if maybe he should put her in a sport of some kind so she could work out her energy. It actually wasn’t a terrible idea, though he didn’t want to bring it up until he’d done research on what was available. He had meant it to be one of the first things he had done when they moved here, but the last three weeks had gotten away from him between unpacking and getting used to his new job and getting their routine all figured out. Putting all the older two girls in some kind of activity would probably help them settle into their new lives a little easier.

“Sorry, Daddy.”

“It’s okay, I forgive you.” Frank paused, not taking his eyes off the road. It was early enough in the day that there was still a lot of traffic, and it would be about ten more minutes before they made it home. “What are you thinking about back there?”

“Um…” It was a noise that said she knew exactly what she was thinking about was but wasn’t sure she wanted to share it, and Frank frowned. Olly was probably his most honest kid. Even Gemma sometimes tried to hide her messes or pretend someone else did it. 

“She’s probably thinking about Mom.” This was from Izzy, her face all screwed up in concentration as she continued fiddling with the knobs of the stereo. When Frank turned to look at her, she wasn’t even giving an indication that she was paying attention other than the fact that she had responded to his question. Her voice was low, like she was trying not to let Olly hear her, except they were in a car. Of course Olly heard her.

“Izzy,” Frank started to scold her, only for Olly to break in before he could.

“I was not!” Her protest was instant and defensive, and she crossed her arms for good measure. Frank made a mental note to remember that when he tucked her in that night, so he could let her know that it was okay for her to think about her mom. “I was actually thinking of Hunter’s mom.”

“Oh yeah?” This took him by surprise. “Hunter’s a kid from school?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve talked about him before?”

He glanced up at the mirror to see Olly nodding. She had so many classmates that she talked about — it seemed that so far, Olly was quite popular and friends with nearly everyone — and Frank had a hard time keeping track. “Which one’s Hunter again?”

“The one with a green eye and a brown eye.”

“Oh, right.” Frank vaguely remembered her talking about him before, but not anything specific. “Why were you thinking about his mom?”

There was silence, and when he glanced up at the rearview mirror again, Olivia was staring at him.

“What is it?”

She just shrugged, definitely hiding something, and Frank didn’t like that at all.

“What is it, Olly?”

She kicked the back of his seat again before muttering an apology as she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to do that, and then sighed heavily.

“He says his mom died. And he says his daddy says she’s watching him from heaven.”

This apparently was enough to get Izzy’s full attention. Frank watched her turn around in her seat as far as she could without taking her seatbelt off — he had scolded her for her seat belt so many times she could probably mimic him in her sleep.

“How did she die?”

“I think…” Olly paused, the silence full of the sound of her trying to remember. “I think she was sick.”

“She was so sick she died?”

“Uh huh.”

“And now she’s in heaven?”

“Hunter’s daddy says so.”

“Is Hunter’s daddy dumb?”

“Iz, come on.” Frank shook his head sharply at her and then glanced at Olly in the mirror again. “Why were you talking about her?”

“Because. We were talking about mommies and daddies at school and he said his mommy wasn’t here anymore because she was in heaven.”

“Well, I think that’s fucking stupid.”

Before Frank could even react, Izzy had sat back in her seat and crossed her arms.

“Isabella Rose.”

“What?” If Frank hadn’t been her father, if he hadn’t known her for her entire life, he would never have been able to detect the tremble of emotion just audible underneath all of the attitude. For a kid who wasn’t even in her teen years yet, she sure had a lot of control over her emotions, keeping them all bottled in until there was too much pressure and she exploded. She was exactly like Frank in that sense.

“You’re grounded.”

“Why? Am I wrong? It’s stupid.”

“That’s not why you’re grounded, though you shouldn’t talk to your sister like that. You’re not allowed to curse, and you know better.”

“You curse all the time.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Whatever.”

“Daddy,” Olly said, filling the silence left by Izzy’s punishment, “You know in that movie with the dogs? And all of them go to heaven?”

“Yeah, that was Izzy’s favorite movie when she was little.”

There was a scoff from the passenger seat, but Frank ignored it.

“Why, Olly?”

“I was just wondering. Do you think all mommies go to heaven, too? So they can think about their kids, and miss them, and watch them if they really miss them?”

The line of questioning made Frank’s breath catch in his chest. That was the closest Olly had come to actually talking about things, and he didn’t want to answer the question wrong. He was worried that saying the wrong thing would freak her out again and she would never feel comfortable talking about it. Except Frank wasn’t sure how to explain it to her, how to talk about morality and what happens when someone dies. It seemed cruel to tell a little girl, his little girl, that he didn’t actually believe that there was an afterlife. Even if he believed in heaven and hell, Frank had never wanted to impose that belief system on his own kids the way it had been imposed on him, even though he knew his mom had meant well by it. His mom had her beliefs, and she was just trying to keep Frank out of trouble, and it had worked until he’d graduated high school, at least for the most part.

“I don’t know, honey. I think it’s possible.” He sighed and glanced over at Izzy, who was staring out the window, ignoring the conversation. “What do you think, Olly?”

“I don’t know either. But I think I would like it if our mommy and Hunter’s mommy were friends and watched us together.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” Though he still felt like he was going to be sick, Frank forced a smile as he looked in the rearview mirror at her.

Later that evening, while he was cooking dinner, he called his mom, explaining the situation to her as he boiled the water for pasta. As expected, her opinion was quick, her own beliefs steadfast.

“I think it’s pretty clear. You should have told her that yes, of course. Of course her mother is in heaven.”

“But I don’t believe that.”

“I know. And it breaks my heart.”

“Ma, you know I don’t want to do that, but it’s complicated.” He shifted his phone to his other ear and looked through the kitchen door to make sure the girls were all still distracted in the living room and not eavesdropping on his conversation with their grandma. “Even if heaven was real, do you really think she would have made it there?”

Frank hadn’t been able to say his ex-wife’s name or to think or talk about her except in the vaguest way since the funeral, and he had given up trying. Still, his mom knew who he was talking about without him having to say it.

“I don’t know, Frankie.” He could hear her sigh even through the phone, and he wondered when he would stop making his mother sad.

“I don’t either.”

“Well, I could always ask Olly about it the next time she’s here, if you want. Not to tell her she has to believe the same thing I do, just to tell her what I believe. She can choose what she wants to, it’s up to her.”

“Maybe.” Frank wasn’t sure if a five-year-old was capable of thinking critically about religion and belief systems, but he didn’t know if it was actually better to just keep it from them like he had with Izzy. He wasn’t actually sure of much these days, and it probably couldn’t hurt. Probably.

“It might be good for her, Frankie.”

“Yeah.”

There was a sudden commotion in the living room and he heard voices being raised, and he completely missed his mom’s response, though he was aware of her making one. Setting down the box of pasta, he peeked around the door to see Gemma frowning from her seat on the floor, looking like she was about to burst into tears.

“Hey, Ma, I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay, honey. Kiss my grandbabies for me.”

“Will do. Love you.”

“Love you too, Frankie.”

Hanging up the call, he set his phone down on the counter and went to diffuse whatever fight was brewing while simultaneously thanking his parents for keeping him an only child.

* * *

“Mikey.”

Mikey looked up from his phone and then put it in his pocket instead of just setting it facedown on the table, all of his attention turned suddenly to Melody. His fork was still stuck in his pasta where he’d been twirling it before he’d put his phone away. It was actually almost obscene, the way it was pointing up straight into the air like that, and he reached up to lay it down on the plate with a tiny clink that could only barely be heard over the ambient noise of the restaurant.

There was something about her tone that had his full attention where she hadn’t had it before. One of the things Mikey liked most about Melody was that she didn’t demand his undivided attention all of the time. For the most part, she was perfectly content to just exist in the same space as him. They were both very busy people, but they enjoyed each other’s company, even if said company was only half of someone’s attention at dinner. They’d still gotten to know each other, and it worked for them, or had, for awhile at least. Mikey knew from the look on her face that something wasn’t right, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the kitchen messing up her order.

He finished chewing what was in his mouth, his gaze fixed to her. He knew what was coming — of course he did. He had been trying to figure out a way to bring it up himself for the last few weeks. It was a delicate situation because he actually liked Melody, even if he didn’t love her, even if she didn’t love him. There were always situations in which break-ups went so badly that there was no way that the exes could be friends, but Mikey didn’t think that was the case here. He actually thought that the two of them would be much better friends than lovers, as cliché as that sounded.

“What is it?”

Melody didn’t even have to take a breath to steady herself, she was apparently that sure about what she was going to say. She simply fixed Mikey with a look and opened her mouth.

“I think I might be pregnant.”

Mikey didn’t know what to say, so he simply didn’t say anything. He just stared at her as his mind played catch up. It was unusual for him — he always knew what to say even if he didn’t want to say it, or didn’t think it was necessary. There was always something that could be said, if he chose, but now, he didn’t have the words. He hadn’t even remotely expected for Melody to tell him that she might be pregnant. He’d been expecting a breakup, but this, this had been impossible to predict. This was pretty much the exact opposite of a breakup, and Mikey couldn’t deal.

“I don’t… I don’t understand. How did this happen?”

“Well, I think…” Melody trailed off, looking like she was going to cry because of course she was. It was bad enough that she had to explain this to Mikey, and even worse that she had to tell him exactly how it had happened, even worse that he hadn’t caught on from the instant she spoke. “You remember that time we went and stayed at my parents’ house a month ago for that show, and we only had one condom and we used it earlier that day? I think it was then. I was on the pill but I accidentally left them at home, and we were out of town. I’m so stupid, I know.”

By now Melody was hiding her face in her hands, leaning her elbows on the table. Mikey just gaped at her. He wasn’t even fucking responsible enough to be an uncle, he was nowhere near prepared enough to be a father, and Melody didn’t look any more ready than he felt.

“But you’re not sure?”

“Yes. Well, no. I’ve taken one of those tests you buy at the store, and it was positive. They can be falsely positive, I think, but I know I’m not just late, I’m never late.”

Mikey shook his head. He wasn’t a medical professional, and neither was Melody, but he had been with people whose cycle or whatever the fuck it was ran all over the place. He didn’t think he and Melody had ever even talked about hers aside from the weeks they’d been together where she had insisted on blowing him instead of having sex. He had assumed that was what had been happening but he’d never asked her, never thought it was his business. He wasn’t in love with her. Their relationship was barely a relationship.

Melody reached out and took his wrist, and he was surprised to find her fingers warm and entirely dry; he felt like he was about to sweat out into a pool on the floor. He thought she had still been hiding behind her hair across the table, but apparently she’d seen him looking like he was about to lose his mind. Either way, her touch was pretty grounding. Mikey took one breath and then another, and he looked at her.

“So… what?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“Like, what do we do now?” Mikey couldn’t keep from turning his hand over to clutch at her wrist too, like he needed the contact just to stay present. “Do we go to the doctor? Do we tell our families? Fuck, Melody, I have no fucking idea what to do with this.”

She was shaking her head pretty frantically and he felt at least somewhat sane in the realization that he was about as stressed as she was. “No, no I don’t think we tell our families. I have to go to the clinic, first, to be sure, and then, I, uh…” She chewed at her lip and he figured that she was alluding to other options that didn’t involve actually having the baby and he nodded so she didn’t have to say it. He thought he should say something, but what he needed to and wanted to say wasn’t what Melody probably wanted to hear.

“I thought you were going to break up with me.”

He knew that normal people didn’t threaten a breakup after finding out that their girlfriend might be pregnant, but he didn’t feel normal. And it wasn’t like he was threatening it, it was just the truth. Still, when Melody didn’t say anything, Mikey shook his head and started to apologize.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” 

“I was,” she responded, her voice curt, though she did pause for a moment to wince. “I mean, I was going to, actually. I was just thinking about it earlier today and thinking about us and our relationship and how things are going, and that’s when I realized that I hadn’t bought tampons since before we went to my parents and that was almost two months ago, and things have just been so insane at work, I forgot to keep track.”

He didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended, the last ten minutes had been full of so many things that turned his perception of reality upside down that he couldn’t tell which way was up anymore. Melody kept talking, but Mikey was stuck on the part about her work being busy, wondering if maybe that was why she was late. He waited until she paused and then spoke before she could continue.

“Wait, isn’t being late, sometimes, like… stress related? Like it could be that.”

She fixed him with a look that was almost full of pity. He was pulling at straws and he knew it, and so did she. There was no reason he, with his rudimentary knowledge of the female anatomy, knew more than she did about her own body. Mikey knew that she had probably already considered this, and had probably already ruled it out if she was telling him. But she sighed, almost like she was letting him delude himself a little longer.

“I guess, I guess it could.”

The server came up to their table before he could respond and asked them if they would like any dessert, and Mikey shook his head. He needed a drink, and he needed one immediately, and he wasn’t about to get drunk and messy in this restaurant where the innocent staff definitely did not deserve to have to deal with his disaster of a life. It was only a disaster because Mikey couldn’t keep it in his damn pants for one fucking weekend. He had only been able to assure the waiter once that no, they didn’t need boxes, and then he had gotten lost in his own thoughts again.

The two of them remained silent until Mikey had paid for their dinner, leaving half of the pasta on the table. He was unsurprised to find that they had both lost their appetites, though as they headed out the door of the restaurant, Mikey wondered if Melody should really be skipping meals now that she was apparently with child. With his child. He stopped, frozen completely still on the sidewalk, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, and Melody turned towards him as she realized he wasn’t moving along with her anymore.

“What is it?”

“I just… I can’t wrap my head around this. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with it on your own so far.”

Melody tried to shrug it off, but her face gave away that she hadn’t really expected an apology. He knew it was his fault, he had been the one who had forgotten to pack condoms that weekend, a fact he clearly remembered. Even though she hadn’t outright blamed him, he was definitely the one who should be apologizing. Apparently she hadn’t expected that from him. She reached her hand out to take his, which was more than he deserved at the moment, and she flashed a small, sad smile at him.

“It’s okay. I’m not on my own now.”

They got into the car and Mikey drove her home. He didn’t have to work that night, but Melody seemed to understand that he needed some time to digest it all, so she didn’t ask him to come inside to keep talking about it, instead turning to him in the car and telling him that she would call him in a few days after she made it to the clinic. Mikey just nodded, watching her walk to the front door of her apartment building without really seeing it. His eyes were unfocused, and he was aware of her turning to wave at him, but he felt too numb to wave back.

He needed a drink.

* * *

Ray was pretty proud of himself for not being late to pick up the kids. He hadn’t actually been late yet, but there was always that fear, mostly because he knew that Dawn would ream him until the end of time if she ever caught wind of it. He was trying to avoid that at all costs if possible, and had taken to setting alarms for himself so that he wouldn’t be super focused on whatever he was doing and forget to leave on time.

He still managed to cut it close, though he was never late. Halfway between his car and the classroom, he realized he had forgotten to leave his sunglasses in the car, so he took them off and shoved them in his pocket. Ray was aware of how actually geeky that was, but he didn’t really care, there was no one he was trying to impress at afternoon pick-up, except for maybe Frank. That was only a friendly thing. To be fair, he was pretty sure Frank wasn’t into fashion at all. Sometimes his flannels clashed so much with his sweaters that Ray might have assumed that Frank was color-blind if he hadn’t seen him picking crayons while coloring with their kids the last time they’d all gone out to eat at Denny’s. Still. Frank was a cool guy, and he wouldn’t begrudge Ray for doing something functional even if he had been fashion savvy.

As Ray walked up to the door for Noah’s class, he saw Frank and Gemma in their usual spot next to the wall lined with backpack hooks. She was asleep in Frank’s arm as usual, but Frank was very much awake, grinning at Ray as he spotted him.

“Hey, man, how’s it going?” he asked softly in greeting, not returning Ray’s wave. It wasn’t rude, not when he had his arms full of a sleeping toddler. Ray had been there before, and he might not miss those days all the time, but sometimes he felt nostalgic, especially when she looked so peacefully asleep.

“Going alright, how ‘bout you two? Get up to anything exciting today?”

“Nah, just got out of work early enough to swing by and do pick-up myself. Figured my mom could use an afternoon off.”

Ray grinned and nodded. His own mom despised babysitting on school days, but he was pretty sure that it was because she hated helping with homework. She loved spending time with his boys, but not when it involved learning how to read or do math. She wasn’t strict enough for that and maintained that she had done her time when she’d raised her own three boys.

Other teachers were starting to release students from their classrooms, and even though the kids weren’t exactly being quiet, Ray hadn’t seen the baby move at all. Frank eyed them warily though, as if he was afraid one more child yelling and running past them would wake her.

“Seems like the perfect naptime.”

“I know, right?” Frank replied, looking down at Gemma. “I don’t know why, but it always works.”

They laughed as Frank shifted Gemma so he could tighten his hold on her.

“Are you guys doing anything tonight?”

The question seemed to get Frank’s attention even though he’d been watching the door to the first grade classroom, and he turned back to Ray, a soft smile on his face.

“Not really. I told the girls that we might get pizza, but that doesn’t mean that you and your guys can’t come and join us.”

Ray beamed back at Frank, thrilled that they seemed to be on the same page.

“I don’t know, man, sometimes it seems like it’s a lot easier when it’s not just myself, even though there are more kids.”

“I totally get that. It’s like they bounce off of each other more, you know? Less off of me?”

The two of them laughed, again the sounds still somehow not waking the baby.

There were a few more parents starting to join them by then, mostly moms, but there was one dad that Ray recognized by sight but had never really spoken too. The longer Ray looked at him, the more familiar he looked, like more so than just as another dad who picked up his kid. Even though he was staring, the guy was oblivious, looking in his direction but not exactly at him, and when Ray tracked his gaze, he realized that he was looking at Frank. Before he could say something about it, Frank spoke again, his question making Ray grin.

“Did you get that new pedal you were talking about?”

“I did.” He was always so excited when people brought up his vlog on their own, and it was even better when they seemed genuinely interested. He knew that he had quite a few viewers, but that didn’t mean people in real life actually cared. “It’s killer, as promised. Think that video’s gonna go up later this weekend, if you want to check it out and watch the demo.”

“Awesome. It’s so cool that you buy all that shit and review it so the rest of us don’t have to gamble with it.”

“I know. That’s actually why I started it.”

The classroom door swung open then, interrupting Ray’s explanation. The kids exited the room in alphabetical order by last name, which Ray had been told was how they lined up to do everything, including leaving at the end of the day. Olly came out of the door first and then Noah, both kids immediately finding them and speaking over each other hurriedly trying to tell both of their dads everything that had happened in class that day.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ray saw the other dad looking at him, but he shrugged it off as coincidence, instead dropping down to his knees so that he was at the same level as the kids.

“Slow down, you guys. One at a time. Isn’t Miss Kay helping you learn to take turns talking?”

Olly seemed a bit taken back, biting her lip, but Noah just nodded emphatically and kept going. Having given it his best shot, Ray stood again, looking at Frank and shrugging. He was surprised when there was a tap on his shoulder, and when he turned around, it was the other dad.

“Hi, I’m sorry to interrupt. I couldn’t help but overhear that you have plans for tonight, and…” The man grimaced a little, his shoulders high around his ears with tension, but Ray was patient enough to let him get out what he needed to without pressing too much or making a judgment before he’d even finished. He glanced down at the guy’s kid and noticed that it was the kid with two different colored eyes, both of which were staring up at Ray through wide glasses that seemed to magnify his eyes. Ray couldn’t look away until the kid’s dad started talking again.

“I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just, well, Hunter and I are new in town, right before the school year, and I think it’s been a bit difficult for us both to make friends just yet. Not that we can’t, of course, I’ve been wrapped up in work and Hunter is just shy, he’s been through a lot. We both have.”

The guy was talking so much that Ray could see even Frank was paying attention now, though Olly and Noah were still chattering among themselves. Hunter — that had to be the other kid’s name — was looking back and forth between both conversations, his head the closest thing that Ray had ever seen to the human version of a bobblehead.

Ray shared a covert glance with Frank, trying to gauge his reaction to the other dad’s intrusion. Despite how long it seemed to be taking the other guy to get there, the point was pretty much across. Honestly, Ray had no issue with it, and after a moment, Frank shrugged.

“I know that’s too much information, I shouldn’t be telling you that. Mikey is always telling me I talk too much when I’m nervous. I guess I am nervous. I just want to make my reasoning clear and—”

The other dad kept looking at both of them as he spoke, though his gaze seemed to stick more on Frank. His speech had gone on so long that Ray almost felt bad for him. He obviously needed some social interaction, and Ray considered himself to be the type of guy to take pity on people who were struggling, regardless of how awkward they were being. If he didn’t interrupt now, he thought the other dad might keep rambling until long past when Ray was supposed to put his kids to bed.

“Hey, man, uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh.” The other guy seemed a bit taken aback by his lack of remembering something as socially simple as introducing himself, but Ray tried to smile encouragingly. “Sorry, I’m Gerard, I’m Hunter’s dad.”

“Nice to meet you, Gerard.” Ray held out his hand to shake Gerard’s, noting that the guy had really soft and oddly warm hands. When they let go, he bent down a little bit to shake hands with Hunter, grinning in what he hoped was a friendly way and not what Dawn called his ‘freaky-wide’ smile. “Nice to meet you, too, Hunter.”

The kid seemed hesitant at first, looking up at his dad for confirmation that it was okay, that Ray wasn’t one of the strangers parents always warned their kids about, and then held out his own tiny hand for Ray to shake.

Standing up to meet Gerard’s eyes again, he noticed that Gerard had shoved his hands back in his pockets. That explained the warmth.

“I’m Ray, I’m Noah’s dad. You know Noah, right?” Looking down at Noah, he reached to touch him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention. He had to tug him a little bit closer, but after a second to figure out the situation, Noah looked at his dad and then at Hunter, smiling.

“And this is Frank, he’s Olly’s dad,” Ray added, tipping his head in Frank’s direction.

Frank gave a little wave, probably not able to shake hands on account of holding a sleeping Gemma in his arms, but neither Gerard nor Hunter seemed offended.

“Gerard’s a pretty unique name,” Ray said, tipping his head to the side as he tried to remember if he had ever met anyone with the name. “I think I knew a Gerard back in high school. Any chance you went to high school in Jersey?”

“Actually, yeah. I lived in Seattle for the last thirteen years, but I grew up around here.”

“No way. Thirteen years, that’s wild. Did you go to Kearny High?”

“No, uh, I went to Belleville.”

“Nice. Frank went to Queen of Peace.” Ray watched Frank nod and then remembered that Gerard had been trying to invite himself to dinner before he had derailed the conversation, though it had been more like a shortcut to the end. “So, we’re going to go get dinner at Gio’s pizza a bit later. You two are welcome to come if you want.”

The relief on Gerard’s face was clear and instantaneous, and Ray couldn’t help but grin.

“That would be so great, I just have to let Mikey know so he doesn’t make dinner.”

There was a blond guy that picked Hunter up sometimes, and Ray could only assume that he was Mikey.

“Oh, he can come too. He’s your partner, right?”

“No, that’s not… that’s my brother.”

“Oh. OH.” It was Ray’s turn to feel foolish, his own apologies mixing in with Gerard’s protests that there wasn’t anything wrong with assuming that he had a partner or anything. Frank snickered next to him, his silent laugh shaking Gemma so hard that Ray was surprised she hadn’t woken up yet, but he quieted down when Ray kicked him in the shin.

“You said his name earlier and I just assumed that he was the guy who picks Hunter up when you don’t.”

“Oh, he is. I don’t have a partner, we just live with my brother and he gets Hunter from school sometimes when I’m working.”

“I’m so sorry, man, uh, Gerard. I just assumed… my bad.”

Frank laughed, and the kids started giggling, though Ray was pretty sure they didn’t really know what was going on, they just realized that the adults were laughing and joined in, too.

“It’s fine, really.” Ray’s embarrassment seemed to set Gerard more at ease judging from the relaxation of his shoulders. If it helped, Ray had no problem being the butt of a joke. Still, he gave a sheepish grin and had to resist the urge to continue apologizing.

“So, pizza? Your brother can still come, if he wants to.”

“Honestly, he might. He’s had a really rough week, like his girlfriend just found out she was pregnant and I’m pretty sure they were on their way to breaking up, not that he really tells me these things. Not in so many words. He could probably use some quality male company.”

“No shit?” Frank seemed unnaturally interested in this, at least given his participation in the conversation thus far, but Ray resisted pointing this out, at least for the moment. “Been there, man. It can be a good thing, but man, what a shock.”

He had never asked, but Frank was pretty young to have an eleven-year-old, younger than him even. Ray hadn’t known for sure, but he hadn’t thought that Frank and his ex had planned to have Izzy. Even though Frank had basically just confirmed that for him, it was none of Ray’s business, and there was a difference between being interested in things he didn’t need to be interested in and paying attention to his friends.

He busied himself with looking down at Noah, who had apparently started a game of kicking a pebble back and forth to Olly. As he watched, Noah looked up at Hunter, nudging the little rock over to him without saying a word and positively beaming when Hunter toed it back.

Ray grinned as he looked back up to Gerard and Frank, still having a conversation about unexpected babies, which was honestly a very weird conversation to be having in the middle of afternoon pick-up. Looking down at his phone, Ray saw that it was almost time to head over to get Logan from his class.

“Hey, we gotta get going to pick up Logan.” He glanced between Gerard and Frank who both nodded at him, though Gerard looked a bit confused, understandably so. He didn’t know the names of all the kids, but he would figure it out soon enough. “So, Gio’s? Say five?”

“Yeah, of course,” Frank said, grinning and shifting Gemma a little bit in his arms. “We’ll be there.”

“Us too,” Gerard agreed. “Thanks for inviting us, by the way.”

Ray nodded, prepared to say that it was nothing when it occurred to him that Gerard had pretty much invited himself. He grinned, fully prepared to give his new friend shit for it, but Noah tugged at the hem of his shirt and he remembered that he had somewhere to be.

“Alright. See you guys later.”

* * *

It wasn’t like Gerard hadn’t had sex before, or with a man, even. It was just that it had been years since he’d even thought about it. There was so much going on, what with Hunter being born and growing up, and Darcy being sick and literally dying, and Mikey being across the country living his own life, and his parents apparently losing what was left of their sanity and becoming near unbearable to talk to, and his company, which understood that there was a lot going on, and was doing its best to accommodate that, but still needing Gerard to do the work... He hadn’t had any time to think about sex or having it or who he’d like to have it with. He’d just put his head down and gone on trying to hold as many pieces of his life together as he could all at once.

But now Hunter was settling in (both to being alive and living in Jersey), and Darcy was gone, and he was involved in Mikey’s life again as much as he possibly could be, and their parents had actually written him off instead of the other way around, and, well, work was still work, but at least now he had a few hours to get things done while Hunter was at school. Gerard was doing surprisingly well, despite the amount of grief he felt when he stopped moving, and he’d even built something vaguely resembling a social life.

When he looked back over how he’d managed to handle Darcy’s death, he was proud of himself. Honestly, he’d expected it to be exactly like it had been with Elena. She was his grandma and his best friend in the entire world, and when she had passed, Gerard had lost himself and any direction for a long time. But wasn’t like that at _all_. Darcy was important to him, she’d been one of his best friends in the whole world and she had given him the best part of his life in the form of Hunter, but Gerard hadn’t revolved around her. He was pretty sure that if she could see him now, she’d be cheering him on, and he thanked whatever powers that be there were that she wasn’t actually present physically.

Gerard pushed all thoughts of his son’s deceased mother out of his head and focused on the way Frank was looking at him from across the couch. It was a pointed look, one that clearly had intention behind it, and he had to swallow down… something. Desire? Hesitation? Apprehension? Gerard wasn’t sure, he just knew that it was choking him and making his mouth water. Their kids were all fast asleep on the floor, the movie that they’d put on not even halfway over, he could tell from a glance. Now his attention was nowhere near the movie, not that it ever really had been, but it definitely wasn’t now.

Though they had only hung out a total of two times, Gerard had a feeling that Frank’s interest in him wasn’t entirely friendly, even if it was never unfriendly. At the pizza place, Gerard had noticed Frank staring at him, not looking away even when he was caught. It had happened again several times that first night, and then a few more tonight, each the same. Frank would look at Gerard until he noticed and then he would hold his gaze until Gerard looked away. It was like he had no shame, but Gerard seemed to have enough for both of them, because he always flushed when he broke the stare, only to find Frank smirking when he looked up again. It was almost like it was a game that got more dangerous each and every time they played, though there wasn’t anything actually at stake. Gerard wasn’t even sure it was dangerous, but it sure felt like it with Ray and Mikey right there and all of the kids running around them.

But they weren’t running around now. Izzy had stayed at her grandma’s house and Ray and his kids and Mikey had all left at the same time (the Toros to home and Mikey to work), leaving only Hunter and Frank’s younger two with them. Now the three kids were conked out in a pile of blankets, and Frank was giving him that look, again.

Gerard chewed at his lip, not sure what to do, or if he even wanted to _do_ anything, but then Frank stood up and left the room, so Gerard followed. He wasn’t even sure why he had decided to stay at Frank’s when everyone else had left, or if the decision had even been intentional. He was just certain that he had stayed, and now he was curious what Frank was giving him that look for, because surely he couldn’t mean to—

Gerard stepped out of the living room and collided with Frank’s back with a shocked gasp, and started mumbling an apology. He hadn’t seen him there — all of the lights in the hallway were off and the living room was dark except for the color the television still splashed around the room. But there Frank was, turning and gripping Gerard’s wrist with one hand and putting the other over his mouth to quiet him.

Gerard was suddenly aware of just how chapped his lips were. He almost pressed his tongue forward to lick them, but then realized he’d risk also licking Frank’s fingers and that seemed like it was pretty much a green light if there ever was one, and Gerard wasn’t sure what he would be agreeing to.

Instead, he tried to calm his breathing — he’d been freaked out by the whole crashing into the other man thing, and he could feel his heart still trying to beat out of his chest. Frank leaned to the side and looked past him into the living room, presumably to see if they’d woken up the kids, and yes, it was _they_ who’d almost woken up the kids, not Gerard, because Gerard hadn’t even done anything and he refused to take the sole blame for it, even in his own head.

Apparently the sound of them crashing together in the hallway hadn’t roused any of the kids because Frank nodded and then pulled away, his hand leaving Gerard’s mouth. Frank didn’t let go of his wrist, though, tugging on it so that Gerard would follow him down the hall into the bathroom at the end of it. As Gerard followed, he could still feel imprint of Frank’s fingers on his lips.

Gerard felt slow and dumb, not sure what Frank was doing or if he even wanted to go along with it, but before he could think twice, Frank had yanked him into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He hadn’t even bothered to turn the light on, and Gerard almost commented on it, but then the ghost of Frank’s fingers was gone, mostly on account of the fact that he was now pressing his mouth to Gerard’s. His lips were insistent, pressing against Gerard’s, and Gerard couldn’t figure out why he was so angry, but that wasn’t the right word, not really. Frank wasn’t angry, he was passionate, his entire body pressing up and against Gerard’s like he had nothing to lose, and his hand ended up woven into the hair at the back of Gerard’s neck, pulling him down.

Gerard couldn’t stand there in shock forever, he knew that. He either wanted to kiss Frank back or he didn’t, and he had to decide. It wasn’t like a ton of people were throwing themselves at him, and he supposed he had to get his abstinence streak over with at some point. Here Frank was, ending it for him without Gerard even seeking out a solution.

Gerard took a deep breath through his nostrils and then tilted his head to slot their mouths together more easily. Rather than throwing Frank off, this just seemed to encourage him even more, because he let out a throaty groan and pressed himself harder against Gerard. Their hips weren’t touching, just their chests, but Gerard knew that it was only a matter of time. He could already feel himself aching and pressing up against the fly of his jeans, and he’d only barely clued into what was going on.

Whatever Gerard was expecting (which honestly, wasn’t much because he was kind of still catching up to the fact that Frank was actually kissing him and not just fucking with him), it definitely wasn’t for Frank to pull away from their kiss and drop to his damn knees. And yet, that was exactly what happened.

Gerard couldn’t tell where Frank had gone at first, but then there was the feeling of Frank’s mouth and nose pressed to his hip and thigh and oh jesus christ, his hand was pressed against Gerard’s denim-covered hard-on. He couldn’t breathe, especially not after he heard Frank’s groan at finding him already hard, or big, or whatever the fuck he was groaning about, but Gerard knew that sound would haunt his memory for all of his days.

Still, his brain was two minutes or hours or weeks behind and he couldn’t catch up.

“Wha—" He tried asking, but didn’t even get the entire word out before Frank shushed him and undid his belt in the same damn moment. Gerard’s mind was never going to wrap around whatever was happening, not at this pace. He took in a deep breath to steady himself and Frank used that moment to unzip his pants, and before Gerard knew it, his entire dick was out.

He still didn’t understand how he had been on the couch not two minutes before and now he was in a dark bathroom with Frank on his knees about to touch his dick. He continued not understanding even as Frank wrapped one fist around Gerard’s girth and muffled a moan into Gerard’s hip.

He wasn’t sure why Frank was moaning — he wasn’t the one being flooded with a pleasure he had practically forgotten by now. For years, Gerard had convinced himself that his own hand was basically as good and holy fuck, he had absolutely one-hundred percent lied about it. He would never trust himself ever again, because that was not the same, not even close. Frank’s hands had calluses on his fingertips for some fucking reason, and while Gerard’s own hands weren’t super soft, they were not callused like that. It just served to make everything completely different than when he touched himself.

Gerard thought he heard Frank whisper something like ‘so fucking big’ but he wasn’t completely certain. Even if that wasn’t what Frank had said, he couldn’t help but flush, just in case it was. His palms were pressed to the door behind him and his fingers were clenching at the painted wood each time Frank’s fingers so much as shifted, and then he started stroking, and that was even more overwhelming.

When Frank took the tip of his dick between his lips and sucked, Gerard thought he might have scratched the paint off completely, that there would always be these tiny gouge marks there on the back of Frank’s downstairs bathroom door for the rest of forever. Gerard had no idea of how he was supposed to come over to Frank’s and use this bathroom ever again. He knew he wouldn’t be able to, not without thinking of that exact moment, of the way that Frank’s mouth sank down his length, lips stretching around it, tongue lashing at the underside of it like it was a fucking popsicle and Frank was dying of thirst, or hunger. Gerard wasn’t sure which metaphor worked best here, applied to a metaphorical dick popsicle, he just knew that he was not present enough to be thinking of metaphors at all, not when Frank had at least half of Gerard’s dick in his mouth.

He choked on his breath when Frank took what was left between his lips, his hips almost arching without his consent. Gerard didn’t want to choke Frank, but he didn’t particularly think Frank would care, not when he had basically pulled him into the bathroom and pushed him against the door before getting to his knees. It wasn’t something Gerard would expect from someone who wasn’t fond of sucking dick, so he had to assume Frank did actually like it. He could be wrong -- Gerard was no expert. He never had been a sex god or someone who hooked up with a lot of people, at least not since he’d graduated college and had stopped being drunk all the time.

Gerard ended up lifting his hands to bury them in Frank’s hair, and it came as very little of a surprise when Frank moaned around his dick, at least in concept. In reality, the feeling of Frank’s moan vibrating all through his mouth and therefore all around Gerard’s dick was very surprising, so much so that Gerard ended up gasping and twisting his fingers. That just made Frank moan even more, and Gerard had to tip his head back, eyes blinking up at the ceiling he couldn’t even see on account of them being in the dark. He tried to pull himself together and did a really terrible job of it, and then Frank pulled back and sucked at the tip of Gerard’s dick and he gave up all hope. Gerard let out a high-pitched moan as Frank started doing this thing with his tongue that should be banned, at least in all societies where it was improper for people to drop to their knees at any given moment.

Frank pulled off and Gerard wished that he could see him in the dark somehow, or that he knew where the damn light switch was because he really fucking wanted to see Frank’s face. He wanted to see his lips covered with spit and his pupils blown with desire and god, Gerard hadn’t thought about actually fucking someone in years, but he was thinking about it now. It was kind of hard to not think about it, if he were being honest, especially with the mental picture he had of Frank being that person.

Gerard couldn’t help but twist Frank’s hair again, not because of anything Frank was doing, even if his hand was stroking Gerard’s entire length. He did it because it meant that Frank would make that noise again, and when he did make it, Gerard groaned back in appreciation. He muttered Frank’s name because what the fuck else was he supposed to say without sounding like an idiot? Not that it mattered; anything he could say would make him sound like an idiot to someone like Frank who seemed incredibly sure of himself. In that moment, though, it didn’t seem like Frank particularly cared; he just groaned and reached for Gerard’s hips, like he was trying to pull him closer.

Gerard was an idiot, he really was. He knew that about himself, and he accepted it. Darcy used to tell him fondly that he might be the brightest part of her life but he was awfully dull sometimes, and he had come to miss that, the little insult hidden inside of the compliment. He supposed that the sentiment was even more true when he took into account the fact that he hadn’t had sex in ages, and wasn’t up on the trends. Were there even trends in sex? It seemed to Gerard like most of the things should have been figured out, since pretty much everyone was working with the same parts, so even if something was new to a couple or a person, someone else in the history of the world must have tried it before- and oh holy fuck, he was pretty sure that no one had ever been as good as Frank was with his mouth. Gerard was pretty slow on the uptake, and he hadn’t received whatever signal Frank had given to him that meant “fuck my mouth” because Frank got impatient. He took things into his own hands, literally, and dragged Gerard’s dick down his throat by way of pulling at his hips. After letting out a deep moan that he hadn’t meant to, Gerard finally caught on to what Frank wanted.

He stopped wondering why this had happened, and where the signs that it was going to happen had been, or if he had just missed them. He stopped hoping the kids stayed asleep and stopped thinking about the kids at all. He simply bit his lip to keep the words back and then fisted his hands in Frank’s hair, pulling another moan from, and while that felt amazing, he wasn’t done. His hips fell back against the door and he used his hold on Frank’s head to pull it closer, fucking his mouth that way, and if the way Frank’s fingers tightened on his hips was anything to go by, if the way he choked out a moan around Gerard’s dick was any indication, that was exactly what he had wanted to happen.

The end rushed up far sooner than Gerard wanted or expected. Before he could stop it, he arched his hips up and into Frank’s mouth, holding him in place while he came down his throat. By the time he finished, he realized that he should have given warning, but Frank’s fingers hadn’t left where they clutched at his sides. He felt them there as he relaxed back against the door and loosened his fingers in Frank’s hair. Gerard felt a twinge of guilt about not giving Frank a chance to even choose whether he wanted him to come in his mouth, but Frank pulled his mouth away as soon as he had the thought. He leaned his forehead against Gerard’s stomach, and Gerard could feel him smiling against the skin of his hip. That was just too much for him to handle. He tugged up on Frank’s hair until he got the memo to stand and then he wasted no time before pulling him into another kiss.

Frank sought entrance to Gerard’s mouth and Gerard let him in, tasting himself on Frank’s tongue and moaning. He knew that was how it worked, that Frank had literally just had Gerard’s dick in his mouth and then kissed him a moment later, he was never going to taste like anything else, but it had been awhile and he had forgotten. Gerard shook his head and wrapped his arms around Frank’s waist, pulling him closer as they kissed. He should feel boneless and drained but he didn’t; he wanted to move against Frank, to turn and pin him against the door, to reciprocate the favor. He could feel Frank’s dick pressed hard against his hip, still trapped in his jeans, but the moment Gerard dropped a hand down to Frank’s belt, he broke the kiss.

Frank moved away before Gerard could stop him, turning to the sink to wash his hands and leaving Gerard leaning against the door with his dick still out. Gerard stood there in shock for a moment, the spin of events too fast for him to keep up with. After a moment, he finally got it together enough to tuck himself back into his jeans and move away from the door. He might have thought he did something wrong had Frank not dried his hands off and kissed his cheek, moving out the door before Gerard could say anything. He was left behind in the bathroom, feeling like he had missed something important, and he took another moment to catch his breath before he splashed water in his face to try and pull himself out of his waking dream. By the time Gerard made it back out to the living room, Frank had already picked up his girls and was halfway up the stairs with them. He didn’t know what to do, so he just gathered Hunter up from the nest of blankets and left, closing Frank’s front door behind him as quietly as he could.


	3. Chapter 3

Frank wanted to do it again almost as soon as it was over.

After leaving Gerard in the bathroom that night, Frank had carried Gemma and Olly to bed and tucked them in, and then took a shower. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way Gerard had pulled at his hair, the way he’d bit his lip and tried not to moan even though Frank was doing everything in his power to make him lose it. He had lost it, in the end, this deep moan that Frank hadn’t even considered possible coming out of Gerard’s mouth, and Frank had just tugged harder at his hips, making him lose control until he had fucked Frank’s mouth with abandon. He wished Gerard had somehow left bruises on him — instead all he was left with were memories and even those weren’t enough. Still, he’d ended up jerking himself off and coming in less than two minutes, leaning against the wall of his shower, panting as he watched his seed rush down the drain.

There was something about being on his knees that was reckless and dirty in a way that made him feel alright in a way he rarely did these days. Without his band, it was like there were two of him vacillating in and out of each other, never quite matching up the right way, the edges never meeting the way they should. It drove him crazy, the way his brain had two parts at once, two thoughts at once, two goals at once, and getting on his knees for Gerard in that bathroom had made everything sync up. The edges of the two parts of himself finally met, finally matched up in a way that made sense, and he wanted to do it again and again.

Frank had made sure to clean himself off before he got out of the shower, but he had still fallen asleep that night thinking of Gerard’s hands in his hair, of Gerard’s soft and slightly squishy hips giving way underneath his fingers as he gripped at them. He had woken up thinking about the way Gerard had tasted as he spilled down Frank’s throat, the way he’d tugged Frank up to kiss him as soon as it was over, and how Frank had stood up to let him, just like that. How he’d kissed Frank without an ounce of hesitation even though Frank had just had his mouth around his dick.

Frank had ended up jerking himself off, again, teeth clenching around the corner of his pillowcase because he had felt the need to bite and there was nothing else to sink his teeth into. He had come into his hand and then laid there panting and trying to figure out why he was so fucked up about it. He had gotten a whole five minutes of thinking in before his second alarm had gone off, the one that told him he really needed to get out of bed, and he had rushed into his bathroom to wash his hand off.

Gerard made him feel alive and he wanted to chase the feeling even though he knew it was a bad idea. Frank knew he was broken; he knew there was no point in torturing himself and Gerard with anything other than physical, and for Frank, it never was just physical. That had been the problem with Nat, why they had fallen for each other so hard, and that had been the problem with Dewees and probably the entire fucking problem with the band, why it had broken up in the end. It was hard for a band to stick together when the lead singer and the guy on keys were having a torrid and almost violent love affair. It had been violent, at least at the end. He never regretted the way he felt unless it ruined things, which was the most honest way he could think to live. So of course, Frank regretted the thing with Dewees and the way it had all played out, but only because of what it did to his career.

He had to wait another week entirely to actually see Gerard, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. It wasn’t like he needed to see Gerard to get by or anything, but he knew it meant something that he couldn’t stop thinking about him or his dick or his stupid fucking hair that had hung around his face as he looked down at Frank, a look of complete disbelief across his face. He felt things and he felt them hard, and he knew this was no different. After just a week of knowing him, Frank felt something for Gerard and he was hesitant to admit that, even to himself. If he could keep it contained, though, if he could keep it to himself, if Gerard never had to know, then there was nothing wrong with keeping it up. Frank knew it would hurt, but he was nothing if not a little bit masochistic. Some of his best songs had come from things that had hurt like hell at the time, but damn did they make good music.

Though he wasn’t about to admit it, not even to himself, deep down Frank knew that it definitely wasn’t about the music. It was about Gerard, and he could forgive himself from being wound up about it.

He started looking forward to their Friday night get together basically the moment Gerard left his house, and it wasn’t for any of the usual reasons. Frank liked hanging out with Ray, and though it was a little soon to tell, it seemed like the Way brothers were going to be a good addition. Frank liked that their kids all seemed to get along for the most part, liked how it gave him some semblance of a social life because he was having conversations with adults that weren’t his mother. Not that he didn’t love his mother, because he definitely definitely did, but she was his mom and he couldn’t talk to her about things like current events or things going on at the girls’ schools without her getting very opinionated about everything, and a lot of the time he didn’t agree with her. And Frank wasn’t very good at holding his tongue, even when it came to his mom. To be fair, she hadn’t raised him to keep his thoughts to himself, but all the same, he didn’t like upsetting her.

When he was picking up Olly from school on Thursday, he saw Gerard and gave an excited wave with one hand, his other arm full with a dozing Gemma who always seemed to get the best naps when it was time to pick up and drop off her sisters. Gerard seemed to duck and blush and hide behind his hair and Frank felt giddy that maybe he caused a little bit of undoing for Gerard too. That idea didn’t bode well for the whole “not actually involving feelings” bit, but Frank was so good at lying that he could almost fool himself. He could definitely fool Gerard.

After Olly and Gemma were safely buckled into their carseats, Frank headed to the middle school to pick up Izzy. Her hair was flying wildly around her face as she climbed into the front seat, a block away from the school as requested.

She liked to pretend that she wasn’t being picked up by her dad of all people, and Frank had once asked her on the way to school who all of her friends thought she was being picked up by if not a parent. Izzy had rolled her eyes and murmured something about a teenage boyfriend and Frank had practically choked on his coffee, causing his girls to burst into laughter (though Gemma probably only laughed because her sisters did). Their sense of humor was turning out about as dark as his own, and he was definitely amused they thought it was funny that their dad was about to choke to death.

Izzy greeted him and then reluctantly said hello to her sisters before turning to him.

“Hey Dad, I have a question.”

“Hey Izzy, seatbelt.”

“What?”

“Put your seatbelt on and you can ask your question.”

Izzy frowned and stared at him for a long moment without moving before finally giving in. Frank found it hilarious how she could remember a thousand things and always seemed to notice when any of her family members forgot to do their chores, but she never seemed to remember to buckle her damn seat belt even though she’d been doing it all of her life.

“Anyways, dad. Like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—” She punctuated this bit of attitude with an eye roll because of course she did- what was there for Frank’s sixth-grade spitfire to do but sass him to no end? “Are we going to your sad dad club tomorrow?”

Frank frowned. “Are we going to my what now?”

“Your sad dad club. You know, your little get together, where all of you dads get together in a room and cry about how sad your lives are?”

Though she’d been at her grandma’s last Friday (she had insisted that she needed a break from her sisters), Izzy had been there the first time they had all met up at the pizza place, where they’d made plans to start hanging out every Friday, taking turns to host. She’d obviously been listening and had made a judgment on how pathetic all the dads were.

“Izzy, that’s very rude of you.”

“What? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“No! It isn’t.” Frank found it very difficult to control his expression- he felt like he was an inch away from bursting into laughter about it. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage Izzy’s rudeness; although she was very witty for her age, her attitude made him feel terrible for everything he’d ever put his mother through. He was also almost positive that he never would have called his mother’s life sad, at least not within earshot of her, and definitely not to her face.

“Are you sure? You all seem pretty sad to me.”

He could hear the laughter in Izzy’s voice, like she knew she’d struck comedic gold, and he felt like his composure was about to crack. When Frank glanced back in the rearview mirror to see if his other girls were paying attention and picking up Izzy’s bad manners, Olly was frowning like she was trying to follow along and Gemma was giggling. He hoped it was because of Izzy’s tone and not because Gemma actually thought her dad was sad.

Even if he was, it was pretty awful to think that had bled into his kids’ perception of himself. He knew that the last few months had been rough on them all, but he was supposed to be an example, and he was still more angry than sad, even if he tried not to let that show. But Izzy didn’t mean sad as in actual sadness, she meant sad as in depressingly pathetic, and he supposed that was true, but he still didn’t want his girls to think of him like that.

“Come on, Iz, I’m not sad.”

“Okay, maybe _you’re_ not, and maybe Mikey isn’t, either, but Logan’s and Hunter’s dads definitely are.”

Frank frowned, not understanding where the line had been drawn. Though he didn’t want to ask for clarification, he kind of had to.

“Why are they definitely sad?”

“Don’t they both work from home?”

“Izzy, let me ask you something.”

“Mhmm?”

“You want to be a writer?”

“Uh, yeah. Duh. Of course.” Frank had expected the attitude, because she’d been saying as much since she learned what books were and how they came into being.

“Where do you think writers write?”

“I dunno. The library?”

“Hmm. I’m almost certain that most of them work from home.”

“No they don’t!”

“They do. They do. I’m sorry to break it to you, sis, but you’re gonna grow up and achieve your dreams and be just as sad as everyone else who works at home.”

When he glanced over at Izzy, her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was bright red, because she knew he’d caught her in a corner. It was alarming how quickly her face could change shades.

“Not that being ‘sad’ is a bad thing,” Frank continued carefully, not wanting to provoke his eldest daughter into a downright tantrum when they still had so much left of the day to get through. “It’s only ‘sad’ because you said it was.”

Izzy huffed out a breath and looked out the window, apparently not speaking to him anymore. He sighed and kept driving, shifting the conversation to the girls in the backseat. He asked how Olly’s day had been, and what Gemma had done at Grandma’s house. His other two girls were chatty enough (if Gemma could ever be considered chatty), and even though Izzy stomped upstairs as soon as they got home, he didn’t call attention to it. He let her blow off a bit of steam, knowing how similar her temper was to his own. Eventually she would cool down and come back on her own. Sure enough, she came down with a journal and her headphones a little before dinner, and while she still wasn’t quite communicating with the rest of her family, she was at least present, and that was a marked improvement.

Frank didn’t find out exactly why Izzy had asked about their Friday night get together until they were in the middle of dinner. He’d made homemade garlic bread and pasta with veggies, and put enough cheese on it that he could convince Gemma it was actually macaroni and cheese, which it basically was. It just wasn’t the kind that came from a bright blue box.

Izzy set down her garlic bread and sighed pointedly, then sighed again when no one immediately asked her what was wrong. Frank, who preferred flat-out aggression of all kinds and so was notoriously impatient with passive-aggressive anything, couldn’t ignore how ridiculous she was being.

“Out of breath, Iz?”

“No.”

“You sure? You’re doing a lot of heavy sighing over there.”

“It’s just that…” Izzy paused and Frank took a drink of his soda while he waited for her to continue. He really ought to stop drinking soda, but he wasn’t sure what he would replace it with if he did. Water, maybe? But who wanted to drink water?

Izzy spoke again, breaking into his tiny mental tangent.

“Someone from school asked me to go to the mall with her tomorrow and she’s like the coolest girl ever, and she always asks everyone else to go shopping with her, and after they go shopping they get to spend the night at her house, and she has a pool and a karaoke machine, but she never asks me. Except today, at lunch, she and her friends came up and she asked me if I wanted to go to the mall after school tomorrow, and I really want to go, but I know you’re not going to let me so I don’t even see what the point of asking is.”

The words came out so fast that Frank could barely keep up with her. Right after she finished speaking, she slumped back in her chair without giving so much as an opening for him to respond.

“Hang on, hang on. Who is this girl? Have I met her before?”

“No, dad, and I’ve never even mentioned her because she’s never even looked at me before because I’m just a nerd and like I said, she’s the coolest girl ever.” She sulkily stuffed a piece of pasta into her mouth and chewed it before answering the first question that she had completely skipped over. “Her name is Ella and she’s in my core class. And my PE class. And my math class.”

“That’s a lot of classes you guys share. How could she not know you?”

“Because, I already told you, I’m a lame nerd.” She seemed like she was about to say something else but thought better of it, suddenly shutting her mouth and Frank almost laughed. He knew she liked to blame her lameness on her lame dad, but here she was trying to get something she wanted out of him and that meant that she couldn’t really insult him at the same time.

He was distracted by Gemma accidentally knocking over her sippy cup, but it was a spill-proof one that actually held up to its name, so all he had to do was tip it upright. Looking back at Izzy, he found that she was still slouching in her chair, looking defeated as she tried to pretend she wasn’t hanging on his every reaction.

“I suppose,” he started, watching her perk up, “that _if_ your homework is finished and _if_ one of Ella’s parents will be at the mall with you, you can go.”

“Really?” The excitement in her voice was something Frank hadn’t heard in awhile, and he couldn’t help but grin.

“Really.”

“Oh, thank you, Daddy.” She got up out of her seat and put her arms around his neck, showing him more affection than she had in weeks. He’d expected it to be a permanent byproduct of her nearing her teenage years, but it was nice to be surprised. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Iz. Make sure you get a number for Ella’s parents tomorrow so that I can talk to them. I’m not just going to drop you off at the mall unsupervised.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.” She nodded and somehow kept from rolling her eyes at Frank being protective. Instead, she started shoveling food into her mouth, which confused Frank all over again.

“Woah, hey. Chew, please.”

“Can’t. Gotta go do homework.” Her plate was clean faster than he had ever seen it, and she put it in the sink before racing upstairs to her room.

Frank looked at Olly and Gemma, who seemed just as confused as he was, and he shook his head.

“Your sister, huh?”

They both burst into giggles, and Olly started protesting that Izzy was his daughter first before she was their sister, and Frank grinned. He didn’t always do the dad thing right, but sometimes he did, and that felt a whole lot nicer than the alternative.

* * *

Since that night with Frank, Gerard had been spinning through life like a fucking whirlwind, or a tornado, or whatever that cartoon character who spun around a lot was called. He wasn’t quite sure what the cartoon guy’s name was, nor did he think it mattered. All he knew was that he’d been energized by the encounter, so much so that Mikey had definitely recognized the change, and even Hunter had asked Gerard if he had eaten a lot of candy or drank a lot more coffee than usual. Gerard just felt happy, though that wasn’t exactly the right word. To put it metaphorically, he had woken up. That was closer to the truth, though he hadn’t really realized he’d been asleep before.

Things had been weird for him since Darcy died, and Gerard definitely realized that he had been coasting on his grief. His care for Hunter hadn’t slipped, not really, and he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. He’d just been walking through life like he was on autopilot. He wasn’t completely dissociating or anything — he was still feeling things and experiencing things, but he wasn’t truly present in the moment. He wasn’t appreciating the life that he had, not until Frank had dragged him into a bathroom and reminded him what it felt like to be alive.

Now, Gerard couldn’t stop being spacey in a different way. He kept getting lost staring at his coffee, drinking it and tasting it and appreciating it like it was the best thing he’d ever drank in his entire life. He felt like writing odes to it, like taking notes about exactly how the moment had come to be because he knew it would never be exactly the same ever again. Maybe he had put just the perfect amount of sugar in it, or maybe he’d waited just long enough to take it off of the pot so it was perfectly hot but not burnt, or maybe he’d slept well enough that he’d had the energy to actually count the scoops he put into the basket, so it was perfectly strong but not bitter.

That last one probably wasn’t the case. He still wasn’t really sleeping so much as dozing off repeatedly throughout the night just to wake up within a few hours to make sure that Hunter was still breathing.

It wasn’t just the coffee, though. The same thing happened every time he went outside, and every time he started painting something new. After school on Tuesday, he and Hunter had gone for a walk in the park and had spent over an hour scraping together piles of leaves just to jump in them. They had laughed the entire time, and Gerard was almost certain that he’d enjoyed it as much as Hunter had, if not more. It was like his entire world was brighter and more alive than it had been in recent memory, at the very least since Darcy had taken her last turn for the worse health-wise. Gerard was grateful, even if it didn’t mean anything beyond a hookup to Frank.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that adults, actual adults, didn’t pull each other into bathrooms for one of them to suck the other off and make-out afterwards. Such behaviors were reserved for teenagers and college kids, and Gerard was neither of those. Frank wasn’t either — despite his young appearance and despite the fact that he was actually the youngest of their little friend group by a year or two. His daughter Izzy was actually the oldest out of all of the gang’s kids.

He felt a bit silly calling it that, but the truth was that he felt included in something bigger than himself for the first time in his life. He had never been one for sports or for organized teams. He liked to do his work alone, and he liked to worry about his own opinion above everyone else’s, which he knew did not mesh with teamwork, but he felt at home with these dads and his brother. It was like he’d finally found a group to call his own and really, he hadn’t even been looking for it. Gerard knew that he couldn’t allow whatever the special dynamic they’d created to be destroyed by whatever it was he and Frank were doing — had done.

He didn’t think there was anything wrong with it; they were both consenting adults. Neither of them were in relationships, as far as Gerard knew, though he couldn’t tell with Frank because they had never actually talked about it. But Gerard hadn’t been looking for a relationship before, and he wasn’t going to now. He wasn’t even expecting Frank to try to kiss him again, so a relationship was pretty much out of the question. Frank was talented and beautiful and so attractive that Gerard thought his eyes might start to bleed if he looked at him too long, and he didn’t even want to think about what the consequences might be if he threw himself at Frank. That would definitely be the end of the easygoing group dynamic.

Instead, Gerard was determined to just be grateful for the hookup they’d had. Apparently, he had needed the release. He had written more in the last week than he had in a month, and he felt so inspired by everything around him that his productivity had been off the charts. His company had run out of things for him to do for the moment -- an occurrence without precedent, at least with Gerard -- which meant that he was free to work on whatever he wanted. He would be able to pick up a few freelance projects, and that meant that he could earn a bit of extra present money before Hunter’s birthday and Christmas, which were both in December.

Gerard wanted so badly to put his newfound creativity to a good use that wasn’t work or something for someone other than himself, so he found himself poking at a few ideas that he had been skirting around recently. His favorite was this supernatural idea about a school and a bunch of kids, and it was only after he had started sketching out characters that he realized it was basically a copycat X-Men. He ended up shelving it. Gerard was of the mindset that no ideas were bad ideas, unless they were plagiarized, but he didn’t like destroying anything just in case he could find a place for it later in something else.

After he finally ran out of ideas and things to do, he let himself think about what had happened with Frank in more than just abstract thoughts and vague flashes of visuals. He knew that he couldn’t ask for something more from Frank. To be fair, he hadn’t really even asked for what had happened, not in so many words. He and Frank hadn’t talked about it before, and they hadn’t talked about it after, and he didn’t see that changing. In any case, he wasn’t sure how to initiate a conversation about it aside from bluntly saying, “Hey, thanks for the blowjob.” There was no good ending to that conversation starter, not even with his imagination.

In the end Gerard decided not to talk to Frank about it at all, not even so much as a meaningful sideways glance at him. He just went about his week, waving at Frank if they crossed paths during drop-offs and ignoring the way his heart started hammering anytime he caught sight of him. He actually found himself searching Frank out in the sea of parents dropping kids off and he liked to pretend that wasn’t happening either.

That week was Ray’s turn to host their get together, and Gerard found himself bugging Mikey more and more the closer they got to Friday. He wasn’t bugging him on purpose, just talking to him a lot and apparently irritating the shit out of him. On Friday morning, Mikey finally snapped at Gerard and told him to let him get some fucking sleep or he was going to make him go by himself.

Gerard hadn’t even realized his brother was trying to nap, though he had admittedly followed him into his room and sat on the edge of his bed. He had only been attempting to talk to him about this idea he had about mutant reindeer and how that had spawned a plot about a diabolical anti-Santa that everyone feared and wrote to every year around the holidays to beg him to spare their loved ones. It was a great idea, he thought, but apparently Mikey didn’t really agree because he ended up kicking Gerard out of his room and locking the door.

Gerard survived the afternoon pick up; he didn’t even bother trying to send Mikey because he figured he deserved a longer nap after he’d kept him up with anti-Santa. Hunter immediately pointed out the fact that his dad’s shirt had paint stains all over it, which had turned into a conversation about how Gerard didn’t really have shirts that weren’t paint-stained, and that ended up turning into a trip to the mall to get some nice shirts that would be designated absolutely-not-for-painting shirts. Gerard tried to make the trip quick because he hated being in the mall for longer than necessary -- there were so many fucking teenagers around, just lingering, and they gave him the creeps. He could tell Hunter was getting antsy too, and on the way out he bought him a pretzel for being so patient. By the time they got home, his kid was completely wiped. He put Hunter down for a nap, and he didn’t even have to rub his back for that long before he conked out, leaving Gerard alone in the apartment. Again.

He did what little laundry there was, thinking the entire time about the conversation they had the week before at Frank’s house. Ray and Frank complained that their days of laundry would never ever end and Gerard could only shrug unsympathetically. He supposed it got worse if there was more than one kid, but he managed to keep it under control, and he’d even been able to help take care of Mikey’s laundry. He worked from home, it was the least he could do to keep the household running since he absolutely hated other chores. Mikey did him the courtesy of doing the bathrooms, and Hunter loved to ‘help’ clean the dishes. Somehow, they made it work.

Eventually the laundry was done too, and Gerard had to turn to something else. 

He felt wild and unrestrained, and that meant that he felt the need to do everything all at once. A man-eating oven had been popping up in his dreams for the past week and a half so he decided to try and paint it and immediately hated it. He proceeded to paint over the entire thing with black so he could start over and then gave up entirely when he saw a comic book on his desk that he had been meaning to read. Going out to the living room, he sat down on the couch and started reading the comic only to put it down five minutes later after he realized he had reread the first page three times. Eventually he went out onto the balcony for a cigarette, which he conveniently stole out of Mikey’s jacket. He wasn’t stressed, he was just unsettled, there was a difference, and if Mikey had been awake to listen to his explanation, he would have given it.

By the time he heard Hunter stirring, it was all Gerard could do not to jump out of his skin from boredom. After a small snack, they sat down together to read the book that Hunter’s teacher had sent for homework, and then read it again for good measure. Hunter had gotten his love of reading from Darcy, probably, because Gerard mostly just read comic books.

After they finished reading the book again, Gerard woke Mikey up and brewed a pot of coffee so his brother wouldn’t hate him when he found the missing cigarette. He had a sneaking suspicion that Mikey kept a mental count of his cigarettes just to make sure Gerard didn’t steal any, which was fucking ridiculous, because Gerard was not a thief, thank you very much. Maybe he should start paying Mikey for all of the cigarettes that he had borrowed. When Mikey didn’t even thank him for the coffee, just grumpily poured himself a cup, he decided against this.

He and Mikey had a short conversation about taking one or two cars, because Mikey had work later. Gerard assured his brother that they would all leave together with plenty of time before Mikey had to get to work, and he ignored the pointed look his brother gave him. He knew Mikey was thinking about why Gerard had stayed late last week, but it wasn’t worth having a conversation about. Without looking at Mikey, he went to the room he shared with Hunter to find him a jacket.

By the time everyone was loaded into the car, Hunter was fussing that he was starving and Mikey wasn’t much better, and Gerard was about ready to lose it from stress. He wasn’t even stressed, he was pretty sure it was anxiety, but he wasn’t about to cop to that either, not aloud, and barely even to himself. When Mikey caught on to the way he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and asked him what was wrong, he just gripped the steering wheel and said it was nothing, and Mikey thankfully let it go. 

When they got to Ray’s house, Hunter barely waited for Gerard to let him out of his seat before he jumped out of the car and sprinted inside. Mikey sulked the entire way in, and Gerard didn’t blame him — he was probably still mostly asleep, and if wasn’t that, it was the whole breaking up with his girlfriend and simultaneously finding out he was going to be a dad thing. Even though it had been a few weeks since the revelation, there wasn’t a time limit on how long it took to adjust to events like that. Mikey could and would be forgiven for his lack of enthusiasm.

Gerard wasn’t sure exactly why he waited to walk into the house after Mikey as he dragged his feet instead of just going around him, but he was pretty sure it had to do with the fact that he’d seen Frank’s car parked in front of Ray’s house. That meant that Frank was already there, and either he would be waiting for Gerard to show up or he wouldn’t be waiting at all, and both of those possibilities seemed awful for completely different reasons.

Gerard stood in the driveway for a minute, taking a deep breath and trying to get rid of his anxiety or stress or whatever the fuck it was that was weighing down his chest. Apparently he waited too long because Hunter poked his head out the open front door to yell that he was going to eat all the pizza before his dad could eat any.

When Gerard walked into the kitchen, everyone was there, crowded around the island or at the table or standing against the counter, but Gerard could only see Frank. He stood there and watched Izzy tug at Frank’s sleeve while he laughed at something Mikey said, his head tossed back. It was like all of the light was focused on him, which Gerard knew was fucking ridiculous because that wasn’t how fluorescent lighting worked.

He had to admit then that it wasn’t just nothing. It wasn’t just a fling. Gerard didn’t just have urges, he had feelings, and he thought Frank was beautiful in a way that didn’t necessarily involve him losing his pants.

Gerard was fucked.

* * *

It had been almost a month since Melody had told Mikey that she was pregnant. Three days after the dinner, she had called him and told him that she had gone to the clinic for a blood test and they had confirmed that yes, she was pregnant. She had said that she had decided she was keeping it, that he could be in or out, but he couldn’t change his mind later. Of course she couldn’t control him, she had said she knew that, but it wouldn’t be fair for either of them if he said he was in and then backed out when the baby came.

Mikey had understood where she was coming from, but he didn’t feel like he really had an option. That was his kid, his baby. He might not be in love with Melody, and he definitely didn’t have any ridiculous notions about flesh and blood and his genes being more important than anyone else’s. His parents were the kind of people who had reproduced because they were expected to, and while Gerard was an exception, Mikey wasn’t exceptionally anything. The Way genes weren’t anything special, weren’t worth passing down, but they were passed down already. It wasn’t like Mikey could change it or take it back now.

There wasn’t a choice, not really. Mikey was in.

Of course that hadn’t meant that he and Melody were on. Whatever honeymoon stage they had been in was on its way to over even before that night at the restaurant. Now there weren’t even any traces of it — the baby revelation had made sure of that.

Melody had assured Mikey that they had time, that there wasn’t any need to worry yet or fawn over her. They would figure things out, but she had said she needed space, and he understood that. It was weird to break up with someone and have a baby with that same someone at the same time. Still, he had made Melody promise that she would let him know when she went to the doctor, and she had even started a shared calendar to keep track of appointments and important dates. She’d named it ‘Baby Calendar’ which Mikey thought was stupid, but he had no suggestions for names to replace it with, so he’d kept his thoughts to himself and the name stayed.

Gerard was being oddly supportive. He’d been acting moony for a couple weeks, and Mikey was so tired of it that he had to concentrate really hard not to constantly snap at him and tell him to knock it off. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was going on with his brother, he just knew that something was and that he didn’t have enough energy to figure it out. Between working and trying to sleep, he stressed out about the situation he’d gotten himself into. It seemed that sleep only came when he didn’t have time for it, and the sun kept him up during the day when he normally slept. He should probably look into getting blackout curtains.

He felt like he couldn’t talk to his brother, because he was being all weird, and he couldn’t talk to Melody because he was giving her space. One of the only people he could talk to was Hunter, oddly enough.

Since Melody had told him the news, his interactions with his nephew had become oddly heavy. He felt like all of his words mattered, like the way he talked to Hunter was a test or trial run for when the baby — fuck, _his_ baby — was born.

Hunter didn’t seem to notice the change in his uncle’s attention. If he did, he didn’t say anything about it. He was so like his dad that it was hard to tell whether he was completely oblivious or so in tune with the situation that he’d totally caught on and had just decided to let things be without calling attention to them.

Either way, Mikey definitely appreciated it. It seemed like Hunter was the only one who didn’t constantly look at him like he was about to fall apart, which was great because he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure why Gerard kept looking at him in that way. The news was shocking, yes, but it was far from the worst thing in the world. People were dying and shit, and there was Mikey, capable of bringing new life into the world and somehow managing to mope about? No. He didn’t want to mope. He just wanted Gerard to leave him alone.

Fortunately, Gerard kept getting really into his art and disappearing for hours at a time, leaving Mikey and Hunter to entertain themselves. After his brother and nephew had moved in, Mikey had adjusted his sleeping schedule. Before it had simply been sleeping where he landed whenever he got tired and waking up sometime around sundown so he could get to work on time. But now he made sure to at least try to sleep when Hunter was at school. That way, he was hopefully rested enough that he could pick his nephew up if Gerard was busy and still stay awake after they got home.

Mikey didn’t really like coloring, he had found, but that wasn’t a huge surprise. He didn’t consider himself artistic at all; if there had been any talent from his parents handed down, it had all been given to Gerard. Mikey didn’t begrudge him for that, of course. It wasn’t like Gerard hadn’t had a rough go of it. There had been the years in Jersey when he’d tried really hard to find something to do before he’d eventually tossed caution to the wind and headed to Seattle for art school. There was art school and the alcohol and the drugs and Gerard had worked really hard to get sober and graduate, trying to establish a stable life for himself. Then, of course, there was the whole thing with Gerard deciding to have a baby with his best friend only for her to find out she was sick around the time Hunter was born. Darcy and Gerard had banded together to raise Hunter while she battled the cancer, and then she’d died anyways. It’d been a difficult few years, and Gerard deserved to have his art skills. He had worked pretty hard for them, after all.

Mikey hadn’t ever worked really hard for anything, so it made sense that he was single now with an unexpected kid on the way, working a job that was fun but not really much of a career. He couldn’t imagine going to his kid’s school in the future on Career Day and telling a class full of impressionable children that he was a club promoter. It wasn’t very impressive, and he was already disappointed with himself.

To Mikey’s surprise, though, he actually really liked Legos. He and Hunter had ended up putting together a kit one afternoon, finishing it way too quickly. When Mikey had looked at the box, he found that though it said ‘ages 6-12,’ it was a bit too simple for his five-year-old nephew, who was apparently a Lego savant. Mikey had gone to the store the next morning and picked out something that looked a bit more complex, one that had a lot more pieces but not too many super tiny one. That seemed to be the sweet spot, and their kitchen counter had slowly been accumulating completed cars and boats and trains that he and Hunter had constructed together. He didn’t really want to think about how much money he’d spent on toys in the past month, so he didn’t.

Mikey knew he should be saving for the baby, figuring it would need a lot of things that he would have to pay money for, but he’d been really fortunate to not have to watch his budget too closely just yet. Besides, Gerard wasn’t the only one who had suffered in the last few months. Darcy had also been Hunter’s mom, and although she’d been sick practically all of Hunter’s life, that didn’t make losing her any easier. The kid deserved Legos, and Mikey would have defended his decision to treat his nephew if anyone had bothered commenting on it. No one did. Gerard barely even noticed the growing fleet of lego vehicles on the counter except when he was half-asleep and waiting for the coffee to brew. He tended to take them apart and then put them together in some new monster form. Of course Gerard was good at Legos too, the fuck.

Mikey wasn’t bitter. He loved his brother and wanted to help out in whatever way he could, and apparently the sentiment was the same in the other direction. He had been surprised a few weeks before when Gerard had come home from picking up Hunter and told Mikey he’d made plans with a few of the other parents to go to pizza. It hadn’t really made sense; Mikey had picked Hunter up lots of times and none of the other kids’ parents had ever done more than wave or smile at him. Still, Mikey hadn’t started work until later that night, so he’d had time, and he had figured it couldn’t hurt to show Hunter and Gerard that being social wasn’t as hard as they both made it seem. The situation had finally clicked when they had showed up at Gio’s and there had been two other dads there.

It was difficult to say whether Gerard had made plans with them because he’d thought Mikey could use more dad influences or whether he just really thought that the darker-haired dad (who’d introduced himself as Frank and looked vaguely familiar) was cute. It was probably a bit of both. 

Mikey couldn’t say that Gerard had a type. He hadn’t really known his brother to date much of anyone, though he knew he considered himself bisexual. Mikey had insisted that he didn’t need to know all that, but Gerard had told him after he’d come home from a date one night when Mikey had been in Seattle, right after Gerard graduated art school. Mikey had made the mistake of asking Gerard if the date had gone bad because the girl had been boring and that had prompted his brother to explain that he’d actually been on a date with a guy. It hadn’t surprised him, and Mikey had confessed that he didn’t really consider gender a factor when it came to being interested in someone. Gerard had tried to start a whole conversation about gender and sexuality, but Mikey had just shrugged him off and went back to playing video games.

Unfortunately, their parents hadn’t been so easygoing. When Gerard had joked about bringing a guy home for the holidays a few years before Hunter was born, it had started a fight that had ended in Gerard refusing to talk to them. Even now, living back in Jersey only a few hours away from the house they had grown up in, Mikey was pretty sure that Gerard hadn’t reached out to them. They hadn’t ever met Darcy or Hunter, and Mikey wasn’t sure Gerard would ever let them know their grandson. It was no skin off his back; he was still on speaking terms with them at least, but he had no interest in sharing any details of his life with them. His head started to hurt if he even imagined telling his mom that he’d accidentally gotten his girlfriend pregnant.

The only reason he had even noticed that Gerard was into Frank was because he wouldn’t quit looking at him. Mikey hoped it was only obvious to him because he paid so much attention to his brother, but it was totally possible that the other dads had caught on too.

Ray, the taller one with curly hair, was a tax accountant and apparently ran a music tech review vlog. He seemed to watch people nearly as much as Mikey. He was less talkative than Frank (who wasn’t nearly as good at rambling as Gerard) but he talked more than Mikey, falling somewhere in the middle. Everything he said was funny though, even if it wasn’t exactly clever. Ray delivered his sentences in a way that made Frank start laughing in a high-pitched giggle, which in turn made Gerard reciprocate with his stupid honk of a laugh. The third time it had happened, Mikey had rolled his eyes at his brother and ended up meeting Ray’s gaze. Ray must have thought that Mikey was rolling his eyes at him, not Gerard, because his massive grin sank right before Mikey’s eyes. Mikey had felt horrible, instantly. He’d had to watch himself after that. He was afraid he’d offend these people he’d just met that he actually got along with.

The kids were nice, too. Hunter already knew Noah and Olly, apparently, and Frank had two other daughters while Ray had another son. Between the kids and the adults, there had been ten of them, and they had to take up two whole tables in a small pizza place that wasn’t exactly slow at dinnertime on a Friday night. In the end, they had all agreed that they should keep hanging out on Friday nights, but that it should probably be somewhere other than a restaurant. Frank had been the first one to suggest they do it at his house. Then everyone had come to the conclusion that it didn’t really make sense for Frank to pay for food all the time- there were ten of them and they ate a lot of pizza. They had talked about taking turns paying for food, but one of Ray’s kids said he wanted everyone to see his house too, so eventually they all came to the agreement that they would take turns hosting. Three weeks later and they were still going strong. It was Mikey and Gerard’s turn to host that Friday, and then it would be Frank’s turn again.

Mikey’s hunch about Frank and Gerard had only gotten stronger, and he was pretty sure that Frank returned Gerard’s interest. When Gerard opted to stay at Frank’s house the first week when everyone else was leaving, he hadn’t been fooling anyone, least of all Mikey. He wondered how long it would take Gerard before he figured out that Mikey was onto him.

Really, Mikey didn’t want to care, but he absolutely could not bear to think about his own life, so he had to occupy himself with dwelling on his brother’s. As he drove Hunter home from school on Thursday afternoon, he wondered if that was what had unlocked Gerard’s sudden productivity, as if maybe whatever he was doing with Frank made him more creative. The thought simultaneously made him shudder and laugh to himself, prompting Hunter to ask what was so funny from the backseat of Mikey’s car.

“Uh, nothing bud.”

A glance in the rearview mirror revealed a look on Hunter’s face that meant he absolutely was about to keep asking, which Mikey could not let happen. He had to head that curiosity off at the pass before it ever got to question time.

“Hey, Hunter. You remember that movie you wanted to see? The one about the talking lizard? Do you think we should go see it?”

Hunter began nodding so excitedly that Mikey was concerned his head might fly off and he wondered if bribing his nephew to distract him was really the best call. Yet, it was the one he had made, and it was too late to turn back now. Hunter was already bouncing in his seat at the prospect of a movie.

That was how Mikey ended up at the movie theater with an overly-excited five-year-old at three in the afternoon, buying two matinee tickets, some refreshments and a bunch of over-priced candy. They made it into the movie theater before previews started and Mikey felt pretty proud of himself for remembering to stop in the bathroom before they went to sit down.

It was the last good moment of the afternoon apparently. As soon as the theater got dark for the main attraction, Hunter managed to spill his box of Nerds all over the floor. The sound of little candy bouncing around the floor of the theater made Mikey wince as they rolled all the way to the nearest carpeted area. He knew it was an accident, and he managed to calm Hunter down by telling him that it was okay, accidents happened, and proceeded to share some of his own candy with his nephew. Everything was fine again for a good two minutes when Hunter realized that he’d left Bunny in the car, a realization that apparently had to be remedied immediately. Mikey tried to reason with his nephew, but it was a losing battle; Hunter proceeded to get more and more hysterical each time Mikey told him that he could make it through the movie without the stuffed animal.

He couldn’t exactly leave Hunter there by himself as he ran out to the car, so he had to drag him along, picking him up the moment they were out of the theater because it was quicker that way. Bunny acquired, Mikey went to walk back in and was stopped by a theater attendant asking for his tickets, which he had unfortunately left in the cupholder back at his seat in the theater. Apparently, it didn’t matter that they had just left two minutes before, there was a strict no re-entry without tickets policy, and they would have to buy new ones to get in. It was clear from the tone of the attendant that she didn’t think they’d ever bought tickets in the first place. When Mikey asked her why she hadn’t seen them walk out, she said her shift had just started. Right about then, Hunter dissolved into uncontrollable sobs that Mikey couldn’t manage to quiet at all, even when he promised that he would just get new tickets. Unfortunately, the teenaged attendant informed him, the movie was already fifteen minutes in, and they would have to wait until the next showing.

Mikey was forced to retreat, the afternoon a complete failure. Hunter was more upset than Mikey had ever had to deal with alone and it was hands down, completely his fault. Hunter sobbed the entire way home, not listening to a single thing that Mikey had to say, and at one point Mikey was afraid that he wasn’t even breathing correctly. Nothing he suggested made Hunter slow down, and he had to carry him into the apartment hoping that Gerard wouldn’t completely freak out when he heard Hunter crying. It was a lost cause, he knew that, and of course Gerard bolted out of his office the instant they walked through the door to the apartment, arms open to take Hunter from Mikey. It wasn’t until Hunter was safely in his dad’s lap on the couch and Gerard had checked all of his limbs to make sure they were all still there that he looked up at Mikey and asked him what happened.

The problem was that Mikey couldn’t even blame him for being concerned, as irritated as he wanted to be at his brother for not trusting Mikey to take care of Hunter. What other choice did he have when Mikey ran into the apartment with Hunter screaming?

He tried to explain the situation to Gerard and was met with a ton of questions. Why hadn’t he told Gerard they were going to the movies — he had, he’d texted him, Gerard must have just missed it. What had happened — nothing really, they had dropped candy and left Bunny in the car, it was just a series of unfortunate events. Did Mikey know they had made that book series into a movie that had actually been really bad — yes, Gerard mentioned it anytime someone said the phrase ‘unfortunate events’ and Mikey had gone too far and used the word series right before it.

In the end, Gerard soothed Hunter until he fell asleep in his lap and then put him down in his bed for a nap. Mikey wandered into the kitchen and pulled out a beer and lit a cigarette, handing his brother a cigarette without prompting when he came and sat at the kitchen counter. After a few moments of silence, Mikey broke, which was so unusual for him that he was sure even Gerard caught on immediately.

“I promise, I tried to do things right. I’m really fucking sorry. I’m so bad at this.”

Gerard seemed to sense that Mikey wasn’t just talking about being an uncle, and he paused for a long time before responding.

“Mikey, you’re not bad at this. It doesn’t just come naturally for everyone. It didn’t for me.”

Mikey scoffed. Gerard might not have natural talent at everything, but he’d never seen him struggle with Hunter at all. Maybe it was because they were so alike in demeanor, but Mikey was sure that Gerard was just saying it to try and make him feel better.

“I’m serious. Darcy used to make fun of me, saying that I’d drop the baby and we’d have to start all over. It was dark, but you know Darcy.”

Mikey did. He’d met her and spent a decent amount of time with her that year that he’d been living with Gerard in Seattle. She was always truthful and her humor could be offensive, but never in a bigoted way. Darcy was funny, and Mikey had always laughed and wondered if she and Gerard had found each other naturally or if one of their mutual friends had recognized the matching dark humor in both of them and made the introduction. He should ask, one day.

“It took a long time before I felt comfortable taking care of Hunter on my own, like a good year. We’ve only been here two months. How were you supposed to know that he has a meltdown if you don’t give him a nap around three? Usually he just comes here and I put him down and you never even know better. He probably would have started crying like that even without the candy and leaving Bunny in the car.”

Mikey hadn’t really gotten used to calling the stuffed animal by its name instead of ‘the stuffed bunny’ but he was trying. He shook his head, tapping the ash off of his cigarette into an ashtray and refusing to look at his brother. It was clear that he was a failure already, he wasn’t cut out to be a dad. Melody would be better off without him, and that was so obvious from his inability to take care of his nephew that she would catch on sooner or later. Maybe he should change his mind now, before his decision ever really stuck.

Gerard spoke before he could voice any of this, but apparently he didn’t have to. As usual, Gerard seemed to know exactly what Mikey was thinking without him having to say a word. He knew it wasn't written on his face, at least not in a language that anyone other than Gerard could understand, but the two of them had always been so close growing up that they seemed to have a body language only they were fluent in.

“Mikey, I promise. It takes time and practice, but you’re not a failure. You just have to show up and try and you’ll get there. It will happen.”

He didn't believe his brother, not really. Maybe it had worked out for Gerard to just show up and try, but that's how things generally worked for Gerard. Mikey didn't much see the point in trying at something he was already sure he was going to fail. He took his time finishing his cigarette as Gerard wandered off back to work.

* * *

Ray hadn't ever been to Mikey and Gerard’s apartment, but he’d imagined it. Not in a weird way, but just trying to picture either of them in stories they had told him about their days. Without a scale or any mention of identifying features, he had just imagined it was about the size of the one bedroom apartment he had lived in before he and Dawn had gotten pregnant with Logan and needed to buy the house. He couldn't imagine all of them being able to fit in it comfortably, even when Frank mentioned to him at afternoon pickup that Izzy was going to the mall with her friends, so there would actually be nine instead of ten.

Around five that evening, Ray pulled into a guest parking space at the apartment complex. As he helped the boys get out of the car, he saw that Frank was doing the same with his girls a few spaces down, and they exchanged waves. Gerard had given them the apartment number that afternoon, and the group of them followed the signs, eventually finding themselves at the foot of a staircase. After having to wait for all four kids and Frank to make it up the stairs before him, Ray realized how grateful he was that their house was only one story. He could only imagine how difficult it might be for him to get his boys out of the house in the mornings if there was a staircase, and he only had two. Frank did have a staircase, though, and he had three kids, and he felt an immediate wave of pity or something like it as he realized that his nightmare was already Frank’s life.

By the time Ray got up the steps, the door was already open, and he saw that he didn’t actually have any idea what the inside of the apartment was like. Really, he was an adult who understood the concept of object permanence, and he should’ve been able to look at the size of the apartment building and see that there was one staircase right in the middle which led to two doors on each floor, one on either side of the stairs, which obviously meant that floors were split into two apartments. The building was actually pretty big, so it made sense that the apartment wasn’t tiny, but he hadn’t thought about it logically at all, just assumed he knew everything and then been surprised when it turned out that he didn’t. Dawn would have laughed at him, and not in a fun way, in a way that was very clearly judgmental. Ray had to shake his head to clear his estranged wife’s voice out of his ears.

Gerard was still standing at the door but the kids had mostly rushed down the hallway into the kitchen, with only Gemma still holding Frank’s hand. There was some kind of weird stare happening between Gerard and Frank that Ray was sure they thought was completely undetectable, so naturally Ray ignored it and followed the kids into the kitchen. If they were going to pretend that there was nothing going on, Ray wasn’t about to call them out on it. It wasn’t his business, at all, and he didn’t even glance at them as he walked past.

Looking around as he headed towards the kitchen, it turned out that he was very, very wrong about the size of the apartment. He could see at least five doors, and even if one was a bathroom and one was a closet or pantry, the place had at least three bedrooms. It was much bigger than any apartments Ray had ever spent time in before. He knew that Mikey had lived there by himself for a few years before Gerard and Hunter had joined him, but the place was bigger than one person needed. It didn't make sense when Ray thought about it, but he didn't ask, not wanting to intrude or seem like he was being judgmental. He supposed that there were a lot of people who had houses in Jersey that they didn't really have family to fill, which wasn’t all that different. Maybe his only issue with the apartment was that it wasn’t a stand-alone house.

As he approached the archway to the kitchen, he was surprised by the sudden swell of sound. The kids were loudly congregating around a few boxes of pizza which Mikey was frantically trying to keep closed until their dads made it into the kitchen, an action which was met with loud protests. Ray was entirely impressed with the sheer amount of sound that hadn’t made it into the hallway, and he made a mental note to say as much. First, he had to corral the kids away from the pizza and a harried-looking Mikey. Sometimes Ray forgot that they weren’t all experienced fathers. Sometimes he definitely felt like he was out of his depth- Dawn had often told him that he was a good dad only because being a dad was the fun part- but Mikey had no idea, about any of it. He would soon enough, though, and the thought made Ray grin.

The kitchen was connected to a small dining room with enough chairs for most of the kids, though Frank usually kept the toddler near him to make sure she was supervised while she ate. Ray redirected the kids into the dining room, though they didn’t really hear him or follow directions until Frank and Gerard came into the kitchen too. He didn’t like to raise his voice as he wasn’t a big fan of yelling in general, especially not when it was directed at kids. It had always been a point of contention between him and Dawn, and the piercing voice she used when she yelled was something that he had not missed at all since their separation.

After flashing an apologetic smile at Mikey, Ray and the other two adults redirected the kids towards the table and got them all sat down with pizza. When Ray was occupied filling soda cups, Noah got out of his seat and went into the fridge to look for ranch, which prompted a conversation reminding him that he shouldn’t get into things in someone else’s house without permission. It wasn’t until all the kids had stopped moving and there was still one seat open that Ray remembered Izzy was out with her friends. Suddenly how little he’d been listened to made more sense; the kids seemed to require every direction to be repeated, and Izzy usually reiterated everything the dads said. He headed back into the kitchen, towards the pizza boxes stacked on the kitchen island. Most of the cheese pizza was gone (that was a favorite with the kids) but there was still a ton of Hawaiian and a decent amount of pepperoni. Frank and Mikey already had beers, but as Ray picked his pizza, Gerard moved to the fridge and brought back a beer for Ray and a soda for himself.

“Man,” Ray said to no one in particular, “Izzy really does boss the little ones around a lot, doesn’t she?” He didn’t mean it offensively, though he realized as soon as he finished speaking that it might have come off that way. “Like, in a good way. They just listen a lot less when she’s not around, even my kids.”

Frank, busy tearing pizza into tiny bite-sized pieces for Gemma, glanced up at Ray and laughed.

“Yeah, she’s definitely a big sister. She’s got that thing going right now where she doesn’t want to listen to anyone, especially me, but if anyone doesn’t listen to her it’s the most offensive thing you can ever do, including me. Especially me.”

Frank chuckled at himself and so did Ray and Gerard, but Mikey wasn’t smiling with the rest of them.

“Has she always been a kid who doesn’t listen?”

Mikey’s question made Frank shake his head as he sat Gemma in the chair at the counter and then scooted her in. Once he seemed sure that she wouldn’t fall, he put her plate in front of her and turned towards the other dads still gathered around the pizza. Before Frank could start to answer, Hunter called for his dad and Gerard headed over to see what he needed. Frank watched him go, then seemed to remember that Mikey had asked him a question. Ray almost snorted at the lack of subtlety.

“No, absolutely not,” Frank told Mikey around a mouthful of pizza. “Izzy used to be my best friend, back when she was little. I mean, it makes sense. She was an only child until she was almost six, and Ghosted Glory took off around the time she was born. I wasn’t really around much between recording and touring, which sucked. But she was always so excited whenever I was home.”

“Ghosted Glory?”

“Oh. Right. Uh, I was in a band, for almost ten years.”

“No, I know the band,” Mikey said, shaking his head. “It was from Jersey, and a big fucking deal. I just didn’t realize you were _that_ Frank Iero.”

Frank laughed.

“How many Frank Ieros do you think there are, dude?”

Mikey didn’t answer, but he smiled, and Ray’s eyes caught on it. He didn’t remember ever seeing him smile before, which was a weird thought. He busied himself pulling out a few pieces of pizza for himself and putting them on a paper plate, moving to the side as Gerard came back into the room to grab some for himself. He didn’t want to pay attention to whatever weird stare thing Frank and Gerard were going to do this time, and he didn’t want to look at Mikey again, so he looked at the table full of kids in the other room. He wanted to make sure that no one had done anything completely disastrous, like start a food fight or something. Given their kids, or at least his, it was within the realm of possibility. Hunter seemed to be a little more withdrawn, but he did participate when everyone else did, and Olly was always up for whatever his boys suggested. Without Izzy there to keep the younger kids in line, Ray half-expected to turn his back on them for five seconds only to find that they’d somehow destroyed the entire dining room. Luckily, it didn’t seem like that idea had occurred to the kids just yet, and Ray hoped it stayed that way.

None of them were bad kids, they were just kids, and even when they made messes and broke things, Ray knew they didn’t have bad intentions. They were going through the world, trying to figure out what was okay and what wasn’t, and their little compasses didn’t always point in the right direction. Still, that was Ray’s job, and Gerard’s, and Frank’s, and even Mikey’s, to some degree. They were supposed to be their kids’ guides. The thought made him laugh to himself, and it wasn’t until the rest of the guys looked at him that Ray realized his thoughts had gotten completely off-topic.

“Do you guys ever get, like, freaked out? That we’re in charge of little lives and making them into good people?”

He looked at Mikey first because he was closest, and he stared back at Ray with wide eyes. His jaw even dropped a little, like the thought hadn’t yet occurred to him but now that it had, it was the most terrifying concept in the history of concepts.

Frank and Gerard on the other hand, had obviously been aware of how ridiculous a situation parenting was for quite some time, and they both nodded. Gerard even gave a shrug when Mikey pulled himself together and looked to his brother for confirmation.

“At least we’re like, older now,” Frank said with a wave of his hand. “When Izzy was born, I was like nineteen. Completely unprepared. I wasn’t even like, anywhere near an adult.”

Ray shoved a piece of pizza into his mouth and looked at Gerard, waiting for him to react to what Frank had said. Gerard seemed oblivious though, remaining silent as he picked chunks of pineapple off of his pizza. Ray had noticed that he wouldn’t eat pineapple when it was on the slice, but instead eat it separately after, which was basically the same thing, the weirdo.

Mikey on the other hand, looked like he was hanging on Frank’s every word. Ray could understand that. Their situations were pretty similar, if he thought about it.

There was a moment of quiet as everyone chewed (except for Mikey, who was still staring at Frank and occasionally glancing around to see if anyone was going to comment). Ray considered his response and then swallowed.

“I mean, I guess you’re never really prepared. We weren’t exactly trying to get pregnant, but we weren’t _not_ trying. Dawn and I were married, it was time. By that I mean our moms were both asking on a weekly basis when we were going to give them grandbabies. I didn’t understand why that was my job, exactly, when both of my brothers were older. I guess they weren’t married yet, so it wasn’t in the cards for them...”

He frowned, kind of forgetting where he’d been heading with that line of thought, but a bit of backtracking to where he’d started reminded him.

“Anyways, we read every book that Dawn could find on babies and having them, or at least Dawn did. She made me read the relevant chapters. They don’t fill you in on everything, let me tell you. Like, they don’t say what to do when your kid throws himself down in the middle of a grocery store because you won’t buy them a candy bar, and they don’t tell you how to tell if they’re having an allergic reaction to the diaper cream, or if the diaper rash is really just that bad.”

Gerard laughed at that and Ray stopped talking, taking another bite of pizza and glancing over as the table of kids erupted in a swell of laughter. Logan was slouching back in his chair, balancing a piece of pepperoni on his face like an eye patch and reaching for another one, presumably for his other eye. It was mostly harmless, but there was always the potential for grease to get in his eye, and Ray could only imagine how that would end up when he had to give the kids back to Dawn in the morning. He cleared his throat to get Logan’s attention and watched him sit up quickly with a guilty look on his face, the pepperoni sliding off and onto the floor as he tried to catch it. This caused the rest of the kids to laugh even harder and Ray couldn’t help but grin before lifting a napkin as a signal for Logan to wipe his face off.

Once that crisis was averted, he tuned back into the dad conversation, just in time to hear Gerard tell Mikey that Darcy’d had them both enroll in parenting classes.

“It’s not a bad idea, Mikes. You and Melody should look into it.”

“I dunno. She’s already mentioned something about some labor class, and I dunno how many classes I can take. School’s definitely a thing I gave up long ago.”

Frank snorted and when Ray looked at him, he was shaking his head. It wasn’t until he saw Ray had noticed that he voiced his thoughts.

“Man, I feel that. I barely made it to my high school graduation. You couldn’t pay me to take a class on anything after I finally got free of that.”

“I don’t know,” Ray said, narrowing his eyes. “I actually didn’t mind school that much.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a fuckin’ nerd.”

“Shut up.”

Ray waited until Frank and Gerard’s giggles died down a little before he spoke again.

“Mikey, going to class might be a more effective way to prepare than reading a ton of books. I think the worst part is that they all contradict each other. One will say that you’re never supposed to let a baby cry unattended and then another says that they have to learn to calm themselves down, it’s all confusing.”

Gerard started to say something but was interrupted by another commotion in the dining room, this time loud enough to make them all stop talking and look. Olly was coughing so loudly that the other kids looked scared and even though Frank had bolted over at the sound, someone had already spilt a cup of soda. The conversation was abandoned as the other two dads rushed into the dining room to help do damage control.

Apparently Logan, the token older kid of the current group, had taken it upon himself to organize an eating contest, and Olly had swallowed a bite of her pizza the wrong way. Hunter, who was sitting next to her, had tried to hand her her soda and knocked over his own in the process.

When everything settled down, Gerard and Frank shuffled all of the kids into the living room for a movie. Ray finished cleaning up and then went back into the kitchen, where Mikey was still standing in the same place looking terrified. It wasn’t Ray’s place to ask, and normally he wouldn’t say anything or involve himself without invitation, but there was something about the hopeless shine to Mikey’s eyes that made him stop combining the leftover pizza into one box.

“You doing okay?”

The words were so foreign to Ray that they felt weird coming out of his mouth. Apparently they sounded alright, though, because Mikey didn't look at him like he was spontaneously growing a second head. He just looked up and continued leaning against the counter in a way that somehow made him appear cool and lanky all at once. Ray didn’t know how someone who looked so at ease in his own body could manage to appear anxious, but Mikey did.

It was difficult for Ray to find a word to describe Mikey’s posture, but then he landed on it. Defeated. Mikey looked defeated, but his gaze was strong as he met Ray’s eyes. Ray wasn’t the type of person to back down (even if the whole reaching out and checking in wasn't exactly natural for him) and now that he had put himself out there, he was committed and wasn't planning on conceding. He held Mikey’s gaze until the set of his shoulders seemed to soften a little bit and he sighed.

“I mean, if I’m being honest, not really.”

Mikey’s answer wasn’t exactly surprising, considering everything he had going on. The baby, the breakup, his brother and nephew living in his apartment and taking up all that extra space he was used to... Not to mention the fact that there would be seven more people in his house every few weeks, according to the rotation they’d scheduled. Even though Mikey seemed sociable, it was different to have people in his space. Ray could understand if he wasn’t really okay with any of it, or all of it.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

Mikey seemed more taken aback by this second question than he had the first, and he sipped his beer before focusing on peeling the label.

“Not really sure what there is to talk about.”

Ray might have been pushing himself to even ask about Mikey’s well-being, but prying when it didn’t really seem like he wanted to talk was out of the question. If Mikey didn’t want to talk about his feelings, Ray definitely wasn’t going to push him to. He walked to the fridge and pulled out a soda, not feeling much like another beer.

“Yeah. Okay.”

The two of them stood there in relative silence until Ray remembered that the kids were in the other room. He walked away and settled in on the couch next to Gerard as Frank helped the kids get comfortable sprawled out on the floor.

At least Ray had tried. Nobody could blame him for not succeeding. They all had their own things going on, Ray knew, and he could tell Mikey was on another level entirely. Nobody came without baggage, but Mikey kept so much to himself, Ray wasn’t sure anyone could crack that nut. When Mikey came in and sat in one of the chairs, Ray didn’t even glance at him.


	4. Chapter 4

Usually, their Friday night events consisted of meeting up in the late afternoon, eating food, and watching a movie with all of the kids until they eventually disbanded to go back home or, in Mikey’s case, to work. The last Friday in October, however, was apparently a special occasion.

For all the time that Gerard spent mooning over the guy, he didn’t actually know all that much about Frank. Gerard, of course, knew that Frank was a dad with three kids, and he knew where he lived, and he knew that his mouth should have a patent on it- It wasn’t even worth other people trying to make cheap copies, it was that good. But he’d never actually taken the time to figure out what Frank’s past had been like, had never even tried to look it up on the internet. Frank seemed to be pretty private about that stuff, and basically all Gerard knew was that he was raising his girls on his own, and his ex-wife was somewhere else out of the picture. He figured that Frank would talk about all the important stuff when and if he wanted to. There was a reason he hadn’t said anything to Gerard about it yet, probably because he didn’t think Gerard needed to know such personal stuff about him.

None of that ever kept Gerard from accidentally spilling his life story to Frank (as well as everyone else) whenever they were all hanging out. It was unintentional, one of those things that just kind of came out, and Gerard had never really been good at keeping himself from oversharing. He had lost count of all the times that he'd accidentally gotten off track from the conversation and went off on a tangent about how something in his life had been relevant, only clueing back in when Mikey cleared his throat. Aside from Mikey’s soft reminders and gently teasing eye rolls, Ray would always nod along and then give him a kind of pitying grimace when Gerard came back down to earth.

But Frank never gave him looks like that. He tended to watch Gerard with eyes that seemed to be memorizing everything, which was odd, because it wasn't really like he was listening, not that Gerard blamed him. His thoughts were kind of difficult to follow, even when voiced. The only person who could ever regularly understand him was Mikey, and that had been borne of years and years of involuntary practice, and that still didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Sometimes Mikey was the one who seemed to judge him the harshest for dragging the conversation off-topic, though Gerard knew that he never really meant it in a hurtful way. The eye rolling got to him sometimes, though he’d never admit it aloud to his brother.

Frank, though. Frank never gave him looks like he was judging him for whatever he did or didn’t understand about Gerard’s tangent, and that both unnerved and settled him into some kind of weird calm stasis. He didn’t understand the way that Frank affected him at all. It was simply something that happened, something that Gerard didn’t like to question because he knew that his feelings for Frank were inappropriate and probably unwanted. He still had them, though; as much as he liked to try and convince himself that he could control his emotions, he’d never really been anything other than a complete wreck whenever anything stressful happened. His emotions tended to run rampant, providing way too much fuel for his reactions, and Gerard knew that wasn’t exactly healthy even if it did help with the whole artistic thing. Some of his best work had been completed while he was wildly emotional. Some of the best of his best had been done since he’d started sneaking around with Frank.

He hated thinking about it like that, but that was really what they were doing. It was in that group of things he didn’t tell Mikey, that he wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t just his secret. He’d once thought he would never have any reason to hide anything from his brother, but it turned out that Gerard was just being naive. Just because he trusted Mikey with everything didn’t mean that everything he knew was fair game to share. Other people, people who didn’t trust Mikey or maybe didn’t even know him, had sometimes confided in Gerard, and he’d found out that there were things he couldn’t actually tell his brother. Those things were few and far between, but the ‘Things-Not-To-Be-Shared-With-Mikey’ bucket definitely existed, and it had gotten a whole lot bigger since Gerard had met Frank.

It wasn’t like Frank had ever actually asked him not to share that information with Mikey, or anyone else, and Gerard supposed that there was really nothing keeping him from telling. The problem was that Mikey would expect more for him, if he knew. He would expect a relationship, the likes of which hadn’t happened for Gerard in years. Gerard hadn’t even tried dating in years, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever had a relationship, at least not a functioning one. Mikey hadn’t really either, but Gerard knew they wanted different things, and Mikey wanted whatever Gerard wanted for his brother.

There had been a really long time in Gerard’s life where he’d just assumed that he wouldn’t ever be able to settle down with anyone, and then he had met Darcy in college. Sure, that hadn’t exactly been the start of a traditional family, but who had one of those anymore? Having a baby with his lesbian best friend was hardly the weirdest thing Gerard had ever done, but it had been the most important, and it’d brought about a change in his perception.

Starting a family hadn’t been out of reach for him, even though it wasn’t done the traditional way, and it was entirely possible that if Gerard was allowed to do that, he was allowed to believe in love and happiness and all of the other things he’d always figured were unattainable for him. He had spent basically all of Darcy’s pregnancy making art and writing about it and overthinking things. Mikey had received a lot of letters back then, most of which Gerard was almost positive he had rolled his eyes at. Mikey knew where his brother stood on the matter of family and relationships and settling down. Of course, all of that had happened before they’d found out that Darcy was sick, and before they had found out that she was actually really sick, and before she had gotten so sick that they had to accept that she wasn’t going to be able to watch Hunter grow up.

Gerard had to reassess all of his conclusions then too, because he wasn’t even going to have the weird, non-traditional family that he’d helped create. It was just him and Hunter and their tragic backstory, and he was still trying to figure out what that meant for him and all his aspirations for happiness. Still, there was something like hope underneath it all, something that had no business poking its head out of the darkness just yet. Whatever that something was, it liked to ignore all of Gerard’s caution and flash brightly in his chest whenever Frank was around, despite the fact that Frank’s own darkness was so densely packed around him that it was nearly visible. Never mind that Frank had never once gone out of his way to show any affection to Gerard outside of the times they’d been together, and they hadn’t even spoken about it. Apparently none of that meant anything to Gerard’s stupid hope.

Gerard was never one for searching the internet for history on someone that he wanted to know more about. He thought it was entirely impersonal and kind of creepy in a way that couldn’t really be explained away or forgiven just because technology had advanced to allow it. What if he found something about someone that he really shouldn’t know? He couldn’t risk it.

When Frank invited them to his show, though, Gerard was so shocked that it didn’t even make sense. He’d apparently missed a lot of things that might have led up to that knowledge.

Frank was a musician. Frank was playing a show. Frank had invited them all to his show.

That in itself wasn’t a problem. Gerard had been shocked at the time, but he had thought he’d hidden it pretty well. Apparently he hadn’t, because Ray hadn’t stopped looking at him funny until he had caught up with him a bit later and pulled him aside. That conversation had been completely awkward, mostly because Gerard didn’t want to be caught paying attention to Frank in any way that could be caught, and Ray had obviously caught him. On top of that, though, there was a bit of an issue that Ray had thought he had to remedy, and when he had held his phone out to Gerard, he had been surprised to see that there was an internet search on the screen for a band that Gerard had been only vaguely aware of. He recognized the band name but couldn’t name any songs, and yet…

The shock he had felt when Frank first invited them paled in comparison to the complete redistribution of reality that happened when Gerard realized that Frank had been in a band, and a pretty successful one at that. According to the first article that he clicked on, the band had been around for almost ten years, eventually ending in scandal, and Frank had been at the heart of it all.

Gerard couldn’t be blamed for the way he had practically tossed Ray’s phone back to him, rushing away to the bathroom. He had felt like he was going to be suddenly and violently ill, and even though he hadn’t, he couldn’t get it out of his head. He barely knew Frank, and it had never been clearer to him that Frank didn’t actually want him to. There had been years and years of his life spent in that band, and he’d never once mentioned it to Gerard. Gerard couldn’t just pretend that it wasn’t intentional. Frank couldn’t have left that much out of his life if he hadn’t meant to. Either Frank didn’t think Gerard was worth telling, or he wanted to keep it a secret from him. Neither option made Gerard feel any better.

Sometimes Frank looked at him in a way that felt like he was seeing right into Gerard’s soul, but that didn’t matter at all if Frank didn’t think Gerard registered high enough on his list to tell him something so important about his life.

For a moment, he’d felt almost angry at Ray for telling him. If he hadn’t known, he still would have been blissfully oblivious. The problem was that he did know, and he knew that wasn’t actually Ray’s fault. If Gerard had been a regular resident of the twenty-first century, then he would have already found it out for himself.

The surprising thing was that when Gerard mentioned it off-hand to his brother later, trying to make it seem like it was just a fun fact, a tidbit about one of their friends that hadn’t rocked Gerard to his entire core, Mikey already knew.

“Oh, yeah,” he had said, like he had known once and forgotten, like it had just somehow never come up in conversation and he had meant for it to. Gerard couldn’t even ask Mikey when he’d found out because it was such an obvious fact. It wasn’t the kind of thing someone discovered, it was just a truth about Frank’s life that should’ve been common knowledge if Gerard was one of Frank’s friends, and now he wasn’t even completely sure he was. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself hope for more when it was clear that he barely even counted as a friend.

The realization tore him up, even more than he’d been prepared for. He was a big believer in a healthy dose of heartache every now and then, but it was one thing to have unrequited feelings for a person and another thing entirely to be completely wrong about where he stood in said person’s life. Gerard was obviously just an acquaintance that Frank said hello to and remained friendly with because it was the polite thing to do. Maybe he looked at everyone that way. Maybe Frank just had eyes that seemed to see way too deep. If that was the case, then Gerard probably wasn’t the only person half in love with him, and if there were more people than just him, even if Frank did want a relationship, he wouldn’t choose mere acquaintance Gerard. The sex was probably just that, and it wasn’t even really sex, it was just Frank putting his mouth on Gerard whenever he felt like it. Gerard let him because what else was he going to do? Frank was literally one of the most beautiful people he’d seen in his entire life and Gerard wasn’t going to say no just because his feelings got in the way.

At least he hadn’t yet. He liked to think that the next time it came up, he’d be more likely to refuse. There was a difference in hooking up with someone Gerard considered a friend and doing something with someone who obviously didn’t rank Gerard anywhere on the list of importance. Even Gerard was too self-aware to do that much damage to himself.

He spent most of the week before the show making lots of art that practically bled from being so angry, the kind of stuff that would just make Hunter’s nightmares worse if he saw. Gerard was glad that he had a separate room for working that Hunter wasn’t allowed to visit without supervision because he was positive that if his son saw the things he was making he would have been traumatized, even more than he already was because of his mother’s horrible and slow death. That was already enough to give anyone nightmares, even if Gerard hadn’t already passed them down genetically.

The violence wasn’t even remotely cartoonish; it was far too realistic to be published anywhere other than a horror comic, and even they would probably make him tone down the gore. It wasn’t a realistic picture of things he wanted to do but couldn’t. Gerard wasn’t a violent person, but some of his thoughts were. He found he slept much better at night when he got the horrific and graphic thoughts out on paper. Even if he wasn’t sleeping for other reasons, getting it out made him feel better.

Gerard tried not to think about the correlation that seemed to happen between his art and the feelings he had for Frank. Back at the beginning they’d been inspired and coherent, coming so quickly that he almost couldn’t get them down on paper. Now they were just as quick but nowhere near as pleasant, each one more disturbing than the last. He might have destroyed or tossed them, but he hated getting rid of any of his work because he feared that it might come in handy someday. Even if he didn’t like it, it could someday be exactly what he needed to make a particular piece work. He never threw things away, no matter how horrifying they could be.

By the time Friday rolled around, Gerard had pretty thoroughly convinced himself that he and Frank and whatever weird thing they’d had were over.

The group had arranged for childcare with their mothers, Ray’s mom having agreed to take Hunter along with Ray’s kids. Gerard was grateful because it meant he didn’t have to make arrangements with Frank or pretend that he currently felt at all amicable towards him. He would get there again, he hoped, because it was important that their friend group stayed solid, but he wasn’t feeling particularly friendly and he would need some time to recalibrate himself.

Mikey had been able to get work off, too, which was great because he didn’t get to go to many local shows these days, being in charge of promoting a club himself. He got to be present at a lot of shows, sure, but Gerard knew that there was a difference in attending a show and working one. Mikey could hear the music and maybe watch a little bit of the band, but it was different than just going to have a good time. Regardless of how he felt about Frank, he was sure that the show would be a lot of fun, so he tried not to worry about it too much beforehand.

After he dropped Hunter off at school, he spent the day making more art, trying to get the last of his anger and frustration and self-loathing out before he went to the show and his feelings inevitably changed. Gerard wasn’t under any illusion that he’d be able to go to the show and be completely unaffected. He would’ve loved to pretend nothing would change his mind about where Frank stood in his world, but nothing was static with Gerard, and his feelings changed every time he walked in and out of a situation. It wouldn’t be the same after as it was right then, and that meant there was a limited lifetime on the art he was making. He probably wouldn’t connect to it as much as he did right then, nor would he be able to produce the same thing exactly.

Mikey was off somewhere all day, and he didn’t have to pick Hunter up from school, which meant that he ended up at home by himself the entire day. Somewhere around four in the afternoon, he got a bit antsy, his concentration abandoning him suddenly. He felt like procrastinating but he really didn’t have that much to put off, aside from dealing with his feelings. He ended up shoving his favorite inking pen off of his desk and onto the floor in a fit of frustration, stomping out into the living room before stomping back into his office to pick up the pen. He just couldn’t be careful enough, the pen was both really hard to find in stores and kind of expensive. Immediately after he save it, he grew irritated with himself that he cared so much about a stupid pen.

He toiled around in the kitchen for awhile, trying to find something to eat that didn’t make him feel like throwing up, which usually wasn’t such a difficult task. Gerard knew it probably had to do with his discontentment, that anything he tried to do just then would result in making him feel useless and incompetent, but that didn’t stop him from trying, nor did it stop him from being frustrated with himself when it panned out exactly like that. He ended up tossing his ramen down the garbage disposal half-eaten because it didn’t have the right texture and he couldn’t stand eating noodles that were too soggy. It was funny, how he usually had to go to war against his son’s pickiness, but here he was being just as picky for no reason at all. It made him a little more sympathetic for Hunter’s plight.

He tried to watch some TV but couldn’t find anything good and distracting, so eventually he gave up on that too and landed on the home shopping channel. It was horrific, the kind of thing that had played at nearly all hours in his parents’ house while he was growing up, and Gerard grimaced at how that hit entirely too close to home. He turned the TV off after fighting with the stupid remote for a few moments trying to angle it right so that it actually worked. Half the time he ended up forgoing the remote altogether and getting up to turn it off manually. This time he got it, though, and he sat in silence for awhile, tipping his head back onto the couch and staring at the ceiling.

He was throwing a fit, and he knew it, and he felt like a child. He missed his kid, but he didn’t want him around for this anyways. It would just be a bad example, and Gerard tried to be the best one that he could be. Hunter only had one parent now, and though he had an uncle, that was pretty much it. Gerard was just glad that Hunter wasn’t there to see his dad losing his cool, though if he had been, maybe Gerard would have had something to focus on that wasn’t himself and it was possible that he wouldn’t have thrown a fit at all.

It occurred to him that he had been in this same position with Hunter many times, where his son was just too overwhelmed with one feeling to be able to function. He thought about all the ways he usually calmed his kid down. A bath was always at the top of the list, and though Gerard didn’t mind baths, he wasn’t really the kind of person to willingly take one if he didn’t have to. A shower would do the same thing and wouldn’t make him feel nearly as much like he was wallowing as a bath might, even though he knew that was exactly what he was doing. He ended up staying in the shower for far too long, and was slightly disappointed when it actually did make him feel better, mostly because he was less likely to keep his guard up around Frank.

Still, he felt better by the time he got out of the shower, enough so that he wasn’t snapping at Mikey. He’d tried not to do so in the last week but sometimes it was difficult- Mikey had so little patience for him and Hunter sometimes. Gerard knew that Mikey was going through his own thing, but that didn’t mean it was fair for Gerard to have to possess all the patience for everyone. Gerard was tired of having to be patient and having to take whatever treatment Frank gave him and whatever irritation his brother felt like dishing out. It was very possible that a night out without his kid would actually be a good thing, even if it meant he would have to see Frank. Presumably he wouldn’t be the only one playing music, although unfortunately that would mean Gerard might have to talk to him. After he got dressed, he went back to his office and wasted what time he had left sketching out a monster with no ears, one that wouldn’t be able to hear even if Gerard did talk to him, and eyes that looked suspiciously knowing, just like Frank’s. He was so into drawing it that he didn’t even hear Mikey get home, but he was aware enough to notice the sound of the shower starting.

He and Mikey went to the bar in one car with plans to meet Frank and Ray there, Mikey driving (To the bar, at least- Gerard had a strong feeling he’d be the one driving home). Gerard had already spoken to Ray when he had called earlier to make sure that Hunter would be okay at Ray’s mom’s house for the night. Hunter, who’d been so shy and quiet at the beginning of the school year, had certainly found fast friends with the Toro boys, and he barely had time to tell his dad he would be fine before he was rushing to hang up the phone so he could go play whatever video game system they had taken to Ray’s mom’s house.

It was good for Hunter, Gerard knew that, and he was so happy that his kid was finally settling in somewhere. He had been worried that Darcy’s death would be one of those things that ruined him forever, like Elena’s death had for Gerard. Hunter was just so young, and he’d practically been raised his entire life knowing his mom was going to die. It was warped, if he thought about it too long, and he’d tried to tell Darcy that their son was too young to understand death well enough to deal with it, but she had always wanted him to know the truth and not be afraid of it. She’d been right, like always, and when she had died, Hunter had been sad, but he was no worse off than any other kid his age. He understood that how much his mom had loved him before she passed, and Gerard just hoped that was enough.

He mulled over the thought as he sat at an empty table near the door of the bar, Mikey walking away to get drinks and hopefully finding Ray along the way. For a moment, Gerard let himself forget where he was in his life, and if he didn’t focus on the people too hard, it was almost like he was back in Seattle before he’d gotten sober. He was abruptly brought back when Mikey returned to the table, sans Ray but with a cup of plain Coke just for Gerard. It was fine, he didn’t need to drink anymore, but seeing everyone else with drinks in their hands kind of made his fingers itch to hold one. He should look up a meeting in Jersey now that he was settled and ask Mikey if he wanted to come with. Gerard had a feeling that would end in more of a fight than anything else, but he’d noticed that when Mikey was stressed, which was all the time lately, he tended to go for alcohol to numb himself out. At least it wasn’t drugs anymore, they’d both grown out of that pretty quickly, but addictions could be awful and Gerard wouldn’t be Mikey’s older brother if he didn’t worry.

As Mikey sat down and started to drink his beer, Gerard sipped at his soda. It tasted almost sickly sweet- What he really wanted was a coffee, and he’d almost convinced himself that it would be okay if he went up and asked the bartender if they could brew a pot somehow when Ray found them. It was perfect timing, the lights dropped pretty much immediately after Ray sat in one of the empty chairs. Gerard had been so distracted by his cravings that he hadn’t even noticed people gathering on stage, the sounds of them tuning their instruments masked by the ambient noise and the music playing overhead. The first thing Gerard heard after the background music faded out was the sound of an electric guitar, and then they were off without even an introduction.

Gerard hadn’t expected much of anything. He didn’t know what kind of music Frank played and it wasn’t the type of venue where the theme was immediately obvious. It was just a bar, and there weren’t even posters for Frank’s band, there was just a sign and a few vague posters saying ‘LIVE MUSIC’ that left everything but the time and place up to the viewer’s imagination.

Frank, who was energetic and loud right from the start, didn’t give Gerard much room to think about what kind of music it was even when he started playing. It was loud and fast and emotional, and Frank kept screaming out words in a way that was almost slurred. Gerard couldn’t understand much of what he was singing, if that was even what he could call it, but he wasn’t sure if it was Frank’s fault or the mediocre sound system’s. There wasn’t much of a light show, but there didn’t need to be. Frank drew attention like he’d been doing it for years, and Gerard was reminded that he had. Remembering Frank’s betrayal of omission fueled another wave of anger in him. The frontman thing made sense, it made sense for Frank to act like he owned the stage; he’d been there for ages, it must feel like going home. Gerard could imagine there was something poetic in that, but he didn’t presently have the sympathy to think about it.

A few songs later, and Gerard could see the sweat dripping off of Frank even from where they were sitting, practically as far as he could get from the small stage. Every time Frank shook his head, which was often, the drops of sweat would catch the light as they fell from his hair. He needed a haircut, not that Gerard minded. Without meaning to, he got a sudden mental flash of the last time Frank had been on his knees. Though it had been a few weeks since, Gerard could clearly remember threading his fingers into those dark locks. He frowned, shaking his own head to rid himself of the memory.

He couldn’t keep having thoughts like that about Frank. It wasn’t fair to Gerard, not when he had no intention of doing it again, no matter how much he was sure those images would continue to haunt him. He had standards; it was one thing to sleep with a friend and another thing entirely to sleep with someone who didn’t even consider him important enough to call him one or to tell him about literal years of his life.

It had been long enough since Gerard had learned about Ghosted Glory that he’d cycled all the way through guilt (for not asking) to self-assurance (he hadn’t wanted to pry, Frank was closed off, and Frank should have been the one to offer the information up when he felt comfortable). It had been a long week of art and thinking, and Gerard hadn’t had nearly enough resolution for it to be truly therapeutic, so the time had mostly just taken the edge off. Now Frank was right in front of him, wearing a fucking sweater, one Gerard had seen him in before and which looked entirely too warm for the way he was moving around onstage, but he still looked great in it. It was infuriating.

He didn’t know who Frank thought he was, getting up on stage and acting like that and making Gerard lose all resolve to hate him. It was horrible and rude and it made Gerard feel like he didn’t have control over himself at all.

When Gerard glanced over at his brother and Ray, both of them seemed to be unaffected by Frank’s playing, at least aside from simply enjoying the music. Frank was talented, that much was obvious, but that was never a question. He couldn’t have taken ten years of his life to tour around the world and not be talented. The band itself wasn’t anything special. They weren’t all in sync and none of them had the same energy as Frank, which made sense. They probably didn’t practice. Gerard had no idea who they could be, since he only knew Frank from school and they obviously weren’t from there. It was possible they worked with Frank or something, or maybe he knew them from his Izzy’s class. It was hard to say for sure, and Gerard didn’t want to ask.

He hadn’t listened to any of Frank’s music from before, but he had to imagine that this was similar in style to what he’d become famous for. That had been a band, not a solo project, and Gerard had no idea how the rights worked when it came to music someone had written part of with another band. He knew nothing about any of it, but that didn’t keep him from wondering, and the train of thought occupied his mind for a few songs.

Eventually the band took a break from playing to drink something and breathe, and Gerard watched Frank approach the mic again, this time looking out at the crowd. Up until then, he’d kept his eyes on his guitar or the ground, simply letting the music move through him. It was like he wasn’t even intentionally playing anything, like he was the instrument and the music was the one in control, and it was so passionate that Gerard had felt wrong looking at him. It reminded him of exactly the way that Frank acted when they were alone.

Gerard watched as Frank pushed his hair back away from his face, fingers catching in the sweaty strands and slicking them back.

“Hey, everyone. I’d just like to thank you for coming out. My name is Frank—”

There was a bit of cheering from the crowd that made Frank pause and grin, and Gerard broke his gaze away from Frank to look around at the other people there. There weren’t actually that many people in the audience, but there were certainly enough to make Frank feel welcome, though it was difficult to say if they were there to see Frank specifically. It was Friday night in a bar after all, and live music, even no-name bands, always drew crowds.

“Uh, thanks,” Frank said, grinning out at everyone once the audience quieted down enough for him to speak again. “I guess some of you know me. I haven’t been able to do this for awhile, but a few guys from work, uh, Evan and Matt and Alex, convinced me that it ‘d be good to play again. Let’s give it up for them. Thanks, guys.”

There was a loud round of applause and cheering from the crowd and Gerard looked back up at the stage, intending to look at the people who apparently worked with Frank. He wasn’t expecting to meet Frank’s gaze, but Frank was looking right at him. Gerard froze; he couldn’t read the expression there, but it bordered on surprise, which was stupid. Frank had invited everyone, and they’d all said they were going to be there, so of course they’d showed. When Frank’s face broke into the biggest smile Gerard had ever seen, it was aimed right at Gerard.

That smile instantly melted through all of the walls of ice that Gerard had worked so hard to put up in the last few days. It was odd- All week Gerard’s anger had felt hot, like fire, like blood, but somewhere it had changed and there in the bar, it felt cold. The only thing making him warm was the way that Frank looked at him right in that moment. 

“We’ve got a few more songs for you all. This next one’s a cover. It goes out to a few of my friends that I am so fucking happy made it out tonight.”

The drummer counted off and then they launched into _Just Like Heaven_ by The Cure, which was perfect and loud, and Gerard couldn’t believe how easily Frank could undo all his resolve, just like that. He spent the rest of the set trying to figure out if he had been wrong the entire week, if maybe Frank was just private about his life. He had to wonder if he’d just taken offense to something that had never been meant to hurt him and run with it, wanting to be heartbroken. It wouldn’t be the first time, but he had certainly thought he’d changed enough to be past that behavior by now. After Darcy, things were supposed to be positive, but apparently he still had some growing to do.

Near the end of the set, one of the other guys announced that it was nearly Frank’s birthday, ignoring Frank’s protest. Gerard knew that Frank’s birthday was on Halloween, which fell on a Monday that year, making the entire weekend before a good time for parties and shows. Before Frank had found him in the crowd, Gerard had been so focused on being angry that he hadn’t even noticed any of the Halloween decorations, or even that half of the crowd was in some sort of costume. He grinned and sang along at the top of his lungs as the rest of the band led the entire bar in a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ for Frank as their last song of the evening.

Though he clapped so hard his palms started to sting, Gerard stayed where he was as the set ended and the guys on stage started to pack up. Mikey and Ray went off, presumably to get more drinks, and he stayed there to keep the table for them. He hadn’t asked what the plan was, whether they were planning on staying for the rest of the show and whatever band came on or whether they were all going to head out once Frank was finished.

Gerard supposed that it was possible that Frank would want to go somewhere with his friends from work, maybe, but for he didn’t think so. There was something in the way that Frank had smiled at Gerard that told him Frank would come find him when he was done. Gerard wasn’t very good at sitting still, but there he sat, waiting. His eyes wandered around the room and he spotted Mikey and Ray leaning on the bar, faces close as they talked and waited for the bartender. Their body language was odd, comfortable, and for a second Gerard wondered if maybe he was missing something.

The thought was interrupted as his vision was, too, and Gerard had to look up from where he was sitting to see who’d stepped up to the table. It didn’t surprise him at all to see Frank standing there, mouth wide with a grin, face still flushed and hair still damp with sweat from being on stage.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Frank’s question wasn’t much of a greeting, but that didn’t bother Gerard. He didn’t even need to consider it before he was standing and moving around the table.

“Absolutely.”

Mikey was resourceful. He could find his own way home.

* * *

Back when he had been in Ghosted Glory, there were nights when Frank had felt so alive on stage that it was like he would burst into flame if he didn’t breathe just right. The worst part (or the best part, depending on who you asked) was that he had wanted to. He’d wanted to explode because then he would leave his mark on the world. Those days were long over, and now he’d become this dragging shell of himself that he barely even recognized. When he thought about his girls growing older, his thoughts often turned to how, after he grew old and passed on, they might think of him. His heart ached to think that they might remember him just trudging through life instead of actually living it.

That was part of the reason he was drawn to Gerard, in a roundabout way, and he wasn’t remotely sorry for that. He felt compelled to impress him, to make him laugh that ridiculously high laugh of his, the accomplishment feeling much like when he made his girls laugh. It wasn’t healthy to put so much stock in Gerard when they weren’t in a relationship, but Frank was willing to put that aside to keep improving as far as the rest of his life went. He would worry about being healthy when he felt alive again.

Sometimes, though, he found himself wanting to sink into Gerard, to cease being himself. Frank’s mind was a tattered thing, a ship that had been through too many battles and was ready to retire, to live out a calmer life doing something that didn’t involve being constantly shot at with cannonballs. Gerard was like this bright light, a safe haven, someone who had just as much darkness as he had but had weathered it a thousand times better, coming out on the other side with hope when Frank had none left.

So he found himself pushing at Gerard, pulling at his edges to see what he was comfortable with, asking so much of him when all Frank really wanted was to feel life like he used to. He liked to pretend that he didn’t remember the last time he had felt that way, but he did. He remembered it clear as day, and he remembered when it had ended, suddenly and not so suddenly.

Back when he’d been touring, Frank’d had an agreement with his wife, Natalie: she would look the other way about what happened when he was off with the band, so long as she didn’t ever have to hear about it. One of Frank’s favorite ways to blow off steam was through sex, which proved difficult when recording and touring kept him away from his wife for months at a time. Nat had been pretty understanding; she hadn’t cared what Frank did to keep himself sane, and back in those days there had never been a question of where Frank’s heart called home, so she wasn’t jealous.

Frank, who had never been into the idea of sleeping with fans, had instead found comfort and release with one of his bandmates. Somewhere around the start of the band’s third tour, Frank and the keyboard player James had gotten drunk and ended up sleeping together. Even if it was an accident, it made sense given how close everyone in the band was and how affectionate Frank was with them all. The relationship had continued on for the next six years of tours and recording sessions, and it became the best-kept secret in the industry when everyone else in the band looked the other way.

He understood why Dewees had eventually ended it. After a strenuous five tours and three albums pretty much back-to-back, the label had demanded a fourth album, which was proving much harder to write than the first three. Ghosted Glory wasn’t doing well and Frank wasn’t doing much better. He’d been drinking every night because he was upset about the band, upset he’d left his family back home and they were doing fine without him, upset that his own decisions were the reason he wasn’t around and there was no one else to blame it on.

Frank and James’ hookups had gotten messier; Frank wanted James to push him around more, and there was only so far that James would go. Then Frank would leave, pissed off once again. Unable to separate his relationship from the band, Frank had picked a fight in the middle of a recording session, eventually launching himself at James, the two of them throwing fists until the rest of the band had managed to pull them apart. The tension had dragged on and on, poisoning everything until everyone finally decided the band just wasn’t worth it anymore. The press had claimed the breakup came out of nowhere, but everyone who’d been close to the band had seen it coming long ago.

James hadn’t spoken to him for months after, but they were okay now. He’d shown up to Nat’s funeral, which Frank had appreciated. Everything that’d happened at the end was forgiven without words, but they would never be what they’d once been, and that was fine. It would’ve been disrespectful to Nat to try and rekindle anything anyway.

This thing with Gerard didn’t feel like what he’d had with James; it wasn’t nearly as dangerous. These days, Frank still felt like himself, just not as alive, not as vibrant. When Gerard touched him and pulled at him, it was like he was full of colors all over again, stuffed with a magic that he hadn’t had for years, and Frank chased that high over and over again. He knew it would hurt, in the end, but hurting was still better than being numb. He found himself trying to find situations in which they could be alone without making it a thing.

Of course he wanted more, wanted dates and movie nights and beach trips with their kids, but all of that was extra. All of that was more than Frank deserved, and he knew that, so he didn’t even bother to hope for it. He just swept Gerard away when no one was looking and went down on him in a closet or a bathroom or against his bedroom door. He never asked for anything else, never asked for Gerard to touch him, even though Gerard had tried.

He had tried, multiple times, but Frank always sank to his knees or pulled away before Gerard could do anything. It wasn’t like Frank didn’t want to be touched, it was more that he didn’t think he deserved it. He was a glutton for punishment, as dirty as that felt, but he was used to it, to making himself feel less because he hadn’t earned it. He wasn’t about to be rewarded for was toying with Gerard and toying with himself. It would only end in heartbreak, probably for himself, but possibly also for Gerard. He wondered if that was a casualty that could be avoided, because he really didn’t want to hurt him, not when he’d done so much for Frank, even if Gerard didn’t know the full extent of how he was helping.

Of course Gerard knew he was hooking up with Frank, or so Frank assumed. He wasn’t about to put any stock in his ability to gauge someone’s mental state, not after he’d been so completely wrong about Nat. But Gerard didn’t know that Frank walked away from their trysts feeling energized and more like himself than he had in years, and Frank was pretty sure he wouldn’t ever tell him. That could make things confusing, could make Gerard think that something more could happen when it really couldn’t- That’d only lead to more heartache for everyone when it inevitably ended. Frank knew he wasn’t good at making things last. Really, he wasn’t good at much other than being a dad, and even that he was kind of middlingly successful at.

Even though he wouldn’t let Gerard touch him, Frank still got off anyways. He wasn’t about to let Gerard know that most times when he went down on him, he came in his pants (mostly because it was such a juvenile thing to do). He was almost certain that he hadn’t done that since his tour days, when things were different and dirty and exciting. Sex with Nat had ended up becoming stale and uninventive by comparison, which was ridiculous considering that the two of them used to have the wildest sex life. Kids would do that to any couple, though, Frank was sure.

Going down on Gerard made him feel young, and he couldn’t be sure whether he was chasing that or the the feeling of being alive. Maybe the dullness he felt was a byproduct of getting old. Maybe he wanted to feel young again, to feel like the entire world was open to him and there were lots of possibilities he could take advantage of. Maybe what he was really missing was having the chance to do more with his life than being a dad and the office manager of a small, local record label. That whole train of thought made him laugh because of course he would have a midlife crisis before he even hit thirty, and of course it would involve taking advantage of another dad. It also made him feel greedy; he’d experienced so much when he was in the band that asking for more was probably unfair to everyone else.

Frank thought he could go forever without letting himself be touched, figuring Gerard was satisfied with their arrangement. Then he went into his bedroom with Gerard one Friday, after Ray and Mikey had left and their kids were preoccupied with a movie, and Gerard grabbed him by the throat.

That wasn’t an exaggeration — Frank pushed Gerard against the door and started to sink to his knees just like he usually did, only for Gerard to put a hand around his neck, pulling him back up. Before Frank could do so much as shake his head, Gerard had spun them, pushing Frank against the wall instead and leaning against him, effectively pinning him.

“Gerard, what the f—"

“Shut up.” His words were followed by a kiss that silenced Frank just in case he wasn’t listening, which was surprisingly intuitive of Gerard given that this was the first time he’d talked to Frank like that. Back in the days when he was hooking up with Dewees, Frank had never done well at taking directions unless he was feeling particularly needy. More often, he’d refused to follow instructions because he liked being pushed around when he didn’t listen. His tastes hadn’t changed just because he was a lame dad now, but there was no way for Gerard to know that- not unless Gerard had contacted Dewees somehow and asked. Frank shuddered internally at the thought.

Gerard continued kissing him, hot and intense and not holding back at all. Frank moaned into it before he could stop himself, his back arching off of the door to press himself against Gerard. He thought he really should’ve tried asking more questions, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He found himself aching inside his jeans at the thought of Gerard reciprocating what Frank had been doing for weeks. Gerard could feel it, obviously, because Frank had his hips pressed forward, there was no space between them. His hand tightened on Frank’s neck and then fell to his hips, pushing him back against the door and away from where he was leaning into Gerard’s body. When Gerard’s hand cupped his dick, it was all Frank could do to not to toss his head back and moan into the near pitch-blackness of his bedroom. He bit at Gerard’s lip instead and earned a hiss from him that was perfectly intense, just what Frank wanted to hear.

Gerard wasn’t on the submissive side, Frank knew that. Even though he let Frank push him into bathrooms and tug him into empty rooms, when they actually got down to it, he was always quick to take charge and make sure Frank knew that he was the one in control. Gerard would tangle his hands in Frank’s hair, pulling hard enough to yank Frank’s mouth forward and make the tip of his dick press into his throat, but that wasn’t all there was. He had taken to lifting himself up from whatever surface Frank had pushed him against instead of leaning on it, to standing above Frank and fucking his mouth without any prompting. Frank loved it. There was a reason he got so hard he had to reach down and hold onto his dick just to keep himself sane, a reason why he kept walking away from those encounters with spunk in his underwear like he was a fucking teenager again.

But this was different. This was Gerard taking control and making Frank feel more than he had agreed to. The other times had always been on Frank’s terms, whenever Frank wanted them to happen. This wasn’t on Frank’s terms at all. Sure, he’d been the one to drag Gerard into his room but then Gerard had flipped the situation on its head. Gerard was in control, there was no question about that, and he was quick to open Frank’s belt and stick his hand down his pants to finally, _finally_ touch Frank’s dick for the first time.

There was a split second as Gerard reached into his underwear where Frank prepared himself to be let down. He knew it was possible that he’d worked it up in his head, that the anticipation was better than the actual touching- but then Gerard’s long fingers wrapped around his length and he knew he was a goner.

It wasn’t as if Frank hadn’t had someone touch his dick before, but this was exceptional because he had been putting it off for so long. He had told himself his hand was the same, basically, but it wasn’t, not at all. His own hand didn’t feel like that. When Frank touched himself, he knew where he was going to touch next because it was his dick, and he knew what he liked best. This was new — Gerard’s hands were mostly soft, with a few bumps that Frank wanted to examine in detail later, if Gerard would let him. For some reason, he thought that Gerard would refuse even if he actually asked. It seemed too intimate, far more so than what they were doing right now. Strangers hooked up all the time, hurried blowjobs and handies, but getting to know someone’s hands was reserved for relationships and that wasn’t even in the restaurant, let alone on the table.

Gerard twisted his wrist and Frank hissed as his fingers caught underneath the head of his dick in a place he hadn’t yet touched. For some fucking reason he muttered an apology into Frank’s mouth, and Frank shook his head. He didn’t want an apology, he wanted Gerard to push him against the door and not let him go until he had his way with him, and he made that clear by biting at Gerard’s lip, hard enough to make him really feel it. He wasn’t asking, he was telling, and Gerard took instructions much better than Frank did, apparently, because he shoved Frank back against the door with his hips, effectively trapping the hand he’d wrapped around Frank’s dick. Gerard could still move it though, his fist pumping over Frank’s length slowly, squeezing the whole time. He’d pressed his tongue between Frank’s lips and Frank was doing his best to suck on it, to swirl his own tongue around it even though Gerard’s hand was making it hard to focus. Gerard’s mouth, his fucking obscene mouth, was taking over what was left of Frank’s concentration.

Frank had entire fantasies about Gerard’s mouth, but that wasn’t his fault, not really. Gerard was very expressive with his mouth, whether he meant to be or not, and Frank had reason to believe it was the latter. He’d stick his tongue out between his teeth when he was concentrating on something, no matter how small of a task it was. He could be doodling something for Frank’s girls or cutting up food for Hunter, and there was his stupid tongue, tip poking out as he focused. Then there was the way he just fucking licked or chewed on everything. Frank had to make a concentrated effort to not stare. Earlier that night, the girls had insisted on baking brownies for dessert, and Izzy had played a number game with everyone to decide who would get to lick the mixing spoon. Of course Gerard had won. Frank had needed to leave the room entirely to hide the boner he’d popped before Gerard had even taken the spoon.

Before he could think to stop himself, Frank reached up with his hand and pressed his fingertips to Gerard’s bottom lip, and Gerard started, pulling out of their kiss to stare at Frank’s tattooed fingers. Frank caught himself and realized a moment too late how inappropriate the action was. He ignored how inappropriate it was that he’d been blowing Gerard for weeks, or that Gerard’s hand was still wrapped around his dick and squeezing, fuck.

Frank’s breath caught in his chest and he looked at Gerard. Gerard had once been beautiful — Frank had seen pictures in his and Mikey’s apartment. It wasn’t that he wasn’t beautiful now, but he had been exceptional back then, all jaw and cheekbones, artsy and dark-haired in some pictures with a bright shock of red hair in others. He had almost been pretty like a girl, and now he was a dad, definitely a dad. No one would confuse him for anything else, not with the natural brown hair that hung over his eyes and his face a little more full, accented with a bit of facial hair that he probably hadn’t had the energy or time to take care of. But right then, with him looking down at Frank, his head tipped towards his chest so that he was somehow staring at Frank from underneath long lashes, his eyes were dark and he was gorgeous, almost stunningly so.

His hand squeezed again and Frank almost moaned — he couldn’t help it. One of Frank’s hands was still in the air next to Gerard’s mouth, but the other was clutching at Gerard’s shoulder, almost as if he was afraid that he’d fall down if he let go. Frank’s knees felt shaky, like one wrong move from Gerard and he’d sink to the floor. Gerard seemed determined not to let that happen, judging from the way his knee had found its way between Frank’s thighs, helping to pin him in place against the door. Maybe he didn’t actually know how unsteady Frank was, but it certainly seemed like he was vaguely aware.

Gerard blinked once at Frank and Frank felt his pulse jump as he watched Gerard’s mouth fall open. It wasn’t gaping — it was barely open, just enough that he could bring his free hand up to grip at Frank’s wrist, pull his hand forward, and take Frank’s fingertips between his lips.

Gerard’s mouth was warm and wet, his tongue slipping forward to lick at the pads of Frank’s fingertips. Frank couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t even circulate blood or any of the other bodily functions that were supposed to be automatic. He was pretty sure his heart had halted, full-stop. His fingers were in Gerard’s mouth and Gerard had been the one to do it and holy shit, Gerard’s hand was still wrapped around his dick.

Frank was pretty sure he had died. He had died, and this was heaven, or hell — he couldn’t really tell which. He had never understood that. True happiness was so close to true unhappiness for him, the freak who was turned on by his own pain and suffering. He wasn’t certain, because he definitely didn’t know enough about theology despite the fact that he’d gone to Catholic school (though he had probably spent most of it high, to tell the truth). To him, it seemed like heaven and hell were closer than not, and he’d never been more sure of that than when Gerard was standing in front of him, hand down his pants and lips wrapped around his fingers.

There was so much he wanted to say but he couldn’t even begin to try. The words wouldn’t come to his mouth, not with everything else that was overloading his senses. Gerard was still looking at him, his eyes wide and dark. After a long moment he closed his eyes, opened his lips even wider, and ducked his head forward until Frank’s fingers were completely in his mouth. Before Frank could react, he started to suck on them.

“Fuck.” Finally, there was a word, though it wasn’t any of the hundred he’d actually been looking for. It did seem to make Gerard smile even with his mouth full, his tongue licking at the underside of Frank’s fingers. He pulled his lips away with an obscene slurp and Frank’s head fell back against the door, the thump light but loud enough that Gerard’s face fell into a frown for just a second.

Frank couldn’t take the look of concern — it was too sweet, too much, and he caught Gerard under the corner of his jaw with spit-slick fingers and pulled him back into their kiss. Gerard seemed to be perfectly content with this because his weight instantly pressed against Frank again, pushing him into the door. Frank wanted everything Gerard would give him, and he asked for it, though not in so many words. Gerard responded in kind, taking possession of Frank’s mouth in a way that made him wonder if he’d ever been truly kissed before. It was like Gerard was starving, like he needed Frank, but Frank didn’t understand how that was possible. Gerard was so full of life and energy and everything that Frank aspired to possess. He had no idea why Gerard seemed to be hellbent on pouring that all into the black hole that was Frank Iero.

Without warning, Gerard pulled his hand away, tugging it out of Frank’s pants, and Frank moaned into Gerard’s mouth in protest. Gerard didn’t leave him waiting though, both of his hands moving to push at Frank’s pants and underwear, trying to free him of all his clothing. Gerard was lucky it hadn’t been cold today, or else Frank likely would have been wearing long underwear, giving Gerard even more layers to contend with. The giggle he let out at that thought wasn’t exactly the sexiest noise he’d ever made, but Gerard smiled at it for a moment before his mouth fell away from Frank’s and moved to his neck. This made Frank tip his head back again, his lip caught between his teeth as Gerard’s mouth, that fucking mouth, bit at his neck. Frank went right back to moaning, only this time it wasn’t in disappointment.

Gerard seemed to know exactly what to do with his mouth. He didn’t linger long enough to leave marks, just mouthing at different places on Frank’s neck. He seemed to zero in on Frank’s most sensitive spots, paying so much attention to them that Frank couldn’t breathe. Gerard somehow licked right over the pulse point right underneath his jaw, the suction of it just a bit softer than would be necessary to leave a mark, and god, Frank’s mind went wild with the thought of being bitten and scratched and marked up any other way that Gerard could think of.

Aside from that, it seemed that Gerard’s hands were just as adept at doing what Frank was hoping for. They’d successfully freed Frank’s hips, his pants and underwear, pushing his pants and underwear down around his thighs, and Frank didn’t know exactly what was coming next but he suspected that it’d be beyond incredible. It would be Gerard’s hand, probably, because if it was his mouth, Frank would combust right there on the spot, incredible blowjob be damned. So Frank braced himself, every single one of his muscles tightening in anticipation of whatever was going to happen next.

The thing was that Gerard didn’t move. He got Frank’s pants down around his knees and then he just stopped. His mouth was still pressed to the crook of Frank’s neck but he wasn’t moving his tongue anymore, he was just frozen, or close to it. Frank could feel his lips pressing against Frank’s skin so gently it was almost like he wasn’t even moving them at all, so he wasn’t sure if it counted. Whatever Gerard was doing, it definitely wasn’t enough, and it definitely wasn’t what Frank wanted. Frank wiggled his shoulders without really meaning to, his patience growing so thin that he was about to jump Gerard right there just so he would move. Gerard didn’t react to Frank’s almost imperceptible signal, didn’t move at _all_ , and Frank couldn’t take it anymore.

“Gerard.” His voice was quiet but his tone very clearly said that he was irritated. Gerard didn’t respond but Frank thought that he felt the corners of his mouth quirk up ever so slightly. He waited a few seconds and then he repeated his name, a little louder and a little more impatient this time, with a harder stress on the second syllable. “Ger _ard_.”

Gerard pulled away, which was exactly the opposite of what Frank wanted, but at least he was moving and hadn’t fallen asleep. Frank hadn’t realize he’d been afraid of that until the danger was past, and thank fuck because it would have driven him out of his mind. Gerard half-smiled at him, the look on his face hard to place in the given context, and Frank tilted his head, chewing at his own lip as he tried to decipher it.

“You’re not very patient, are you, Frankie?”

“Hmm?” He frowned, still not sure what that look was for, and then it hit him hard, right in his lower stomach. The look was something like pity, though that wasn’t exactly right. He was disappointed, but not actually disappointed, not like he had trusted Frank to do something important and Frank had blown it off. It was more like Gerard had expected Frank to behave better and Frank had let him down, because fuck, of course he had. Of course Gerard expected him to behave better because that was the thing that Frank sucked the most at. He was a brat, he always had been, and instead of feeling bad about being unable to follow directions, Frank just leaned into his bad behavior and intentionally did things he was told specifically not to. It had only gotten him into serious trouble once or twice, but it was enough for Frank to know that he liked being in trouble as long as it didn’t involve cop cars or jail. Or mobs, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like that either.

This was none of those things — this was Gerard wanting him to be patient and Frank failing miserably at a test he hadn’t even been aware that he was taking. Gerard still didn’t move, but Frank really wanted him to, so much so that he almost didn’t care about the whole letting Gerard down thing, except that it spun their entire relationship, or whatever this was, in a whole new light. If they were still just hooking up and Gerard was already teasing him and toying with Frank by making him wait, Frank was completely fucked. Gerard just smiled at him, the smile dark and full of something like amusement as he watched Frank figure it out.

Without warning, he grabbed Frank by his hips and spun him around. Frank ended up pressed chest first against the door, his hands on either side of his head, Gerard’s fist around his dick once again, his other hand holding Frank’s hips away from the door. This time when Gerard leaned against Frank, he could feel Gerard’s bulge through his pants and he couldn’t keep himself from pushing his ass back towards it. It wasn’t like he wanted Gerard to take him right there in his bedroom, except that he kind of fucking did. He wasn’t sure it was the right time for such a thing, or if they should be crossing that line at all. That didn’t seem to be what Gerard was interested in, though. He immediately started to stroke Frank off again, his other hand moving up to tangle in Frank’s hair and tip his head back. Gerard pressed his mouth to Frank’s cheek in something that was like a kiss but wasn’t, there was too much bite for it to be an actual kiss, and his hand was still tugging at Frank’s hair. With his head tipped back like that, Frank’s moan was throaty and unrestrained and that apparently made Gerard grin, because his lips curled back so his teeth were free to press against Frank’s cheek.

“I think I’ve figured it out, Frank. I think I’ve figured you out.”

Gerard spoke the words softly. Frank only held still because he wanted to hear more of what Gerard had to say.

“I think you like being pushed around,” he started, making Frank’s breath audibly catch. “Which is funny, considering you’re the one who’s been pushing me into dark places. But then you always get on your knees.”

Frank could feel his face heating up, his cheeks warm with a blush that Gerard couldn’t see but could probably feel with his mouth still touching Frank’s skin.

“I thought at first that it was just because you liked sucking my dick, but then I realized that maybe you just like being on your knees.”

Frank had been holding himself up, but he was unable to continue with Gerard’s hand still moving. He felt something well up inside him- it felt similar to anger but was probably closer to rage. Gerard didn’t know him, and he had no right to call him out like that. Frank started to struggle against Gerard’s hold, hoping his grip would get even tighter. It worked; Gerard clamped down on Frank’s hip with his forearm and pulled harder at his hair, making Frank hiss.

“Maybe you just like it when someone takes control of you.”

“Fuck you.” Frank spat it out, like he had any ground to stand on, like Gerard wasn’t totally right in his assumptions, like Frank hadn’t been subjecting himself to getting his mouth fucked by Gerard for weeks now. Gerard just shook his head, not letting Frank get away with it, but also not calling him out for his hypocrisy. He simply increased the speed of his strokes, each one catching underneath the head at the spot that had made Frank go weak in the knees earlier.

“Maybe later.”

Gerard’s response made Frank’s stomach drop again, and he couldn’t convince himself that it wasn’t what made him come. All of that pent up desire came to a head as Gerard twisted his wrist one more time, and Frank yelped as his orgasm crashed over him. His hips twitched as Gerard kept touching, each stroke more overwhelming the last. He didn’t stop until Frank started to whine, trying to pull out of his grip. Gerard let go of his dick but he didn’t withdraw completely, still pinning Frank against the wall.

“Shhh. It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.”

It was such a normal thing to call someone you were sleeping with, but it made Frank’s stomach twist.

Nat had called him ‘baby.’

Shaking his head, he shifted his shoulders, trying to break out of Gerard’s arms. Gerard seemed to realize that Frank’s attitude had changed and he took a step back, allowing Frank to move away from the wall. When Frank turned to Gerard, he looked confused but not entirely surprised. His shoulders had sunk back down, and any commanding energy he’d had before was gone.

“I’m not your fucking baby.”

Gerard didn’t answer. He just stood there and stared at Frank in the dim light, not moving. Frank could still feel eyes on him as he pulled his pants back up and went into the bathroom to get himself together. When he came back out, the bedroom door was open and Gerard was gone. Frank found him downstairs, sitting on the couch and watching the movie with the kids as if nothing had happened. Still, even as he silently sat next to him, Frank knew that things between them had changed, even if he didn’t know exactly how.

He was sure he would find out, sooner or later.

* * *

Mikey was certain of nothing these days, but he was pretty sure that he didn’t rank on the top of Melody’s list of people she wanted to accidentally get pregnant with. He hadn’t asked her outright, but it was clear. Even if it weren’t for his complete lack of qualities that might have indicated he would make a good dad, he also hadn’t done anything helpful even after she’d told him. Mostly he just didn’t know what to do; he’d kind of followed her lead and hoped that she’d be clear and direct if she needed him somewhere or wanted him to do something specific.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a good dad, though he kind of didn’t. It wasn’t even that he wanted to be a bad dad, because that definitely wasn’t it either. He’d just never thought about himself taking that role in a kid’s life, even way in the future, and it was difficult to imagine it. Every time he tried, the lines just didn’t match up at all. It wasn’t that he felt the need to shave parts of himself down in order to fit the mold, it was more like there wasn’t enough of him to rearrange. Every time he imagined fatherhood, he fell short.

He was almost positive it was his anxiety and deep fear of failure talking, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Mikey was not dad material, and no one knew it better than him.

He’d been trying with Hunter, and though his brother continued to assure him that he would get the hang of it sooner or later, it just wasn’t getting any easier. Nothing had been as terrible or wrong as that one afternoon at the movies, but there were no successes either, nothing to make Mikey feel better. He’d thought he was doing okay at helping to take care of his nephew, but since Melody’s revelation, it was like all of his timing was off.

Melody asked him to show up to a baby boutique one afternoon and he arrived just a few minutes late. It would be noted, he was sure of it. Now that the two of them were decidedly not together, it was clear that they never would have lasted. Their temperaments just didn’t mesh well. Melody was adamant about being on time always, about always following every social nicety. She was the kind of girl who sent out her thank you letters within a week of receiving a gift, in an envelope that matched the stationary she had hand-written a thoughtful note on. Mikey didn’t think he’d ever sent a thank you note to anyone but maybe his grandparents when his mother’d insisted.

Mikey stepped through the door to the store, a tiny antique-sounding bell attached to the handle tinkling like the store wasn’t completely modern and clean inside. It was meant to make it seem quaint, which it kind of did. Everything he could see was pink and blue and yellow and teal, all pastel fabrics splayed across white fixtures to make everything look fresh and pure. Mikey couldn’t help but feel out of place in his dark jacket, and he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from touching something and breaking it.

“Hi,” a soft voice said from right next to him.

Melody appeared at his elbow, looking just as bright as everything else in the store. It was clear from how quickly she’d found him after he entered that she had been waiting for him, and he suppressed a fresh wave of guilt. He withdrew one hand from his pocket to give her an awkward half hug.

“Hey, there.”

When he pulled away, Melody didn’t look completely irritated at him for being late, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes and he figured that was close enough to count. Melody didn’t let them sit still long enough for him to apologize for it even if he had wanted to, she just turned and headed towards the cribs at the back of the store.

He watched her as she moved carefully down the aisle, one hand on her stomach. She wasn’t really obviously pregnant yet, not as far as he could tell, though it would probably happen soon. Melody was almost four months along, and it shouldn’t take much more growing on the baby’s part for her to really show. She was tiny, after all, not that Mikey was much bigger, even if he was a lot taller. Their kid would probably be abnormally thin.

She looked natural, though, that’s what he was stuck on. With her soft looking braid and her softer looking scarf, Melody looked like she belonged in the store, and it wasn’t just because her teal sweater was in the store’s color palette. The way she held herself made it seem like she was meant to walk into the boutique, meant to be someone who bought things in that very store or one exactly like it, and it seemed effortless for her. He wondered if there was some near magical component to being pregnant that just made someone seem like a parent, naturally, because whatever confidence she had that she belonged there, Mikey just didn’t possess. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

Mikey hadn’t read any of the books Melody had suggested, mostly because reading wasn’t a huge interest of his these days if it didn’t involve comic books. Books about babies and pregnancy didn’t fit in that category at all. He had tried, even going out of his way to buy a few, but they were still sitting mostly untouched on his nightstand. He had flipped through some of them, though, and he remembered seeing something about how parenthood didn’t feel real for a lot of fathers until the baby actually came. That day was simultaneously very far off and not far enough away, and Mikey couldn’t stand to think about it long enough to be comforted by the fact that maybe it might feel real for him eventually. The book didn’t say anything about what percentage of fathers still didn’t feel like a parent even after the baby was born. Typical.

Melody stopped in front of a crib that was white, of course, though Mikey glanced around and saw that there were a fair few cribs that were a natural wood color. If it were up to him, which it most definitely wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t have picked the white one. He wasn’t really sure if that was because of a personal vendetta against the color or if he just felt too dark for it at the moment. His mood had been gloomy for months now, and he couldn’t see it getting any brighter. It was part of the reason he felt so out of place standing next to his ex in the soft and brightly-lit store.

“So, we’re going to have to pick a crib.” She turned to him and brought her hand up to her to mouth, chewing on the edge of her thumb. “Maybe two?”

Mikey met her gaze and then dropped it. Two. They were going to need two cribs. His brain spun as he tried to figure out what she was telling him.

“Are we, uh… what? Is there a possibility we’re having more than one baby?”

Melody practically took a step back with how wrong that idea rubbed her.

“No. Absolutely not. At least… I don’t think so. I mean it’s possible? I think we’re past that point but anything is possible. Sonograms aren’t a perfect science.”

Mikey’s blood ran cold and then hot, and then he felt a chill run down his spine with that concept. He couldn’t even handle one baby, or wasn’t doing very well with it at least, and the baby wasn’t even here. Two babies was out of the question.

“I’m sorry, why two cribs, then?”

Melody wasn’t looking at him anymore, and it felt pointed, on purpose, like she was disappointed in him and his reactions, again. He wasn’t surprised. He didn’t live up to anyone’s expectations these days. Not Melody’s, Gerard’s, or Hunter’s, and definitely not his own. He’d thought he was past the days of disappointing himself, but his oversight with the condoms that had led them to where they were now definitely disproved that.

“I mean, I don’t think we’re living in the same place, are we?” Melody’s question was simple enough, but he could tell that she was tuned into his reaction even though she wasn’t looking at him. It felt loaded, like his answer could potentially provoke a few different responses, none of them particularly favorable.

Mikey stayed as still as he possibly could, his fingers freezing where they had been tracing the edge of one of the crib walls. He felt like any movement would cause an argument somehow, like anything he said would make Melody unhappy. They weren’t together anymore, but he hated making her unhappy. He hated making anyone unhappy. After a long moment of silence, she looked up at him, her green eyes looking almost wet. Crying most definitely meant unhappiness, and Mikey bit back a curse.

“Hey, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know, Mikey. This isn’t quite how I imagined it. Did you?”

“I didn’t really imagine it at all, honestly.”

She didn’t look away from him, her stare somehow hard and hopeful all at once, like she was pinning him into place but waiting, trusting him not to let her down, again. His answer wasn’t one she wanted to hear, or it wasn’t the right one, and Mikey was so tired of giving her the wrong answers. He sighed.

“I just didn’t picture myself being a dad. I feel like I’m not doing anything right with this. I haven’t gotten a single thing right since we found out.”

Melody shook her head, one of her braids stuck on the collar of the white shirt she was wearing underneath her sweater. Mikey resisted the urge to reach out and free it.

“There isn’t a right or wrong.”

“All the books—”

“All the books contradict each other.”

“Yeah, Ray said that.”

“Ray?”

“He’s a friend. Not important. Go on.”

“Right. Anyways, I think there are so many ways to go about it, and I don’t know who is telling the truth and who is lying, or if maybe, it’s possible that there isn’t one true right way to do things.”

She turned and leaned her forearms onto the edge of the crib, sighing and dropping her head down.

“Maybe,” she continued, “maybe there’s more than one way to raise a baby.”

Mikey snorted, making Melody turn her head to look at him. Her gaze was so sharp he was surprised he wasn’t bleeding from somewhere.

“Are you going to be this cynical the entire time?”

“I’m not—”

“But you are.” She sighed and Mikey somehow knew better than to speak in the interim left by her pause. He just bit his tongue and waited for her to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. “I know this wasn’t what you wanted, what you had planned. Do you think it was what I wanted? I definitely didn’t imagine myself having a baby with someone who has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me and is only here out of obligation.”

Mikey scowled. “That’s not exactly it.”

“But it’s close enough. And it doesn’t feel great, Mikey. Do you think this is easy for me?”

“I think it’s easier for you than it is for me.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because,” he said, like it explained everything, though he knew it didn’t. There was no way that it could, and Melody’s expression made it clear that it hadn’t. He would have to elaborate. “Because you actually wanted to be a mom. Maybe not like this, maybe not with me. Definitely not with me. But someday. Being a dad just wasn’t something I ever wanted for myself.”

He held his tongue about fearing that he wouldn’t be any good at it, not wanting to bring his own insecurities up just for Melody to confirm them. He didn’t need her voice in his head too.

She sighed and shook her head, bringing a hand up to put pressure against her temple. Mikey looked away, wanting to give her some semblance of privacy even though they were here in the middle of a store where privacy was nearly non-existent. In fact, there was a staff member hanging out near the register, pointedly watching them even though there were other customers they could also be watching. Mikey refrained from shooting them a glare, but only barely.

“Melody, I think there’s a coffee shop down the street. Maybe we should go there, get some coffee, talk.”

“I can’t have coffee, Mikey.”

There was a sharpness in her voice that sounded near venomous, and he was half-afraid his face was going to melt off just from the sound of it. She wasn’t even looking at him and it was still completely clear just how much he had offended her, though he tried not to let it get to him. Shrugging one shoulder, he shoved his hands further into the pockets of his coat.

“Okay. Tea, then. Hot cocoa. I don’t know, let’s just get out of this store and go sit down and have a conversation.”

It wasn’t as if he really wanted to have the conversation, but it was very clear that they needed to have it, and not in the middle of a store where anyone could listen — and someone obviously was, he thought, glancing back up at the employee near the counter. Surely not every couple that came in here was all sunshine and daisies, agreement and affection. Mikey and Melody couldn’t be the first set of parents to get into an argument pretty much the moment that they walked into the store, but that didn’t mean the cashier had to act like they were making a spectacle of it.

Mikey only had to wait a few more seconds before Melody looked up at him again, looking defeated but not as combative as she had been a couple moments earlier. She nodded, and they headed out of the store empty-handed.

They remained pretty quiet for the short walk to the coffee shop, having a small conversation when they got there just for Mikey to ask what she wanted before she went and found them a table. The line wasn’t very long so he didn’t have to wait much before he got to the counter, and in addition to her tea, he ordered a tea for himself out of solidarity. There was no way in hell he could completely give up coffee, but he didn’t have to drink it around Melody. He could only imagine how much that would torture him if their roles were flipped, and he shuddered at the thought as he waited for their teas to come out on the hand off counter. Once he had both of the cups safely in hand, he turned to look for where she was sitting, finding her at a table near the window.

After he sat, the silence continued to drag on for a few more moments, and Mikey busied himself by setting the lid of his tea aside so that the liquid would cool a bit as the tea brewed. He wasn’t really big on tea, but he didn’t hate it. It had its perks, though it didn’t hold a candle to coffee. He wondered how hard it would be to sneak back here and get some coffee after he and Melody went their separate ways. Gerard would love it if he brought home coffee.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

Melody’s voice broke into his thoughts and he stopped playing with the label hanging from the string of his tea bag so he could look up at her. The urge to shrug was so strong that suppressing it required him to bite his tongue.

“I just… I don’t think you’ve got the right idea about me, about this. It’s not that I don’t want to do this with you, or that I don’t want to do this. It’s complicated.”

“I know that,” Melody sighed, clutching her tea between her palms. “It’s so complicated. But it isn’t going to get un-complicated. We’re not suddenly going to fall in love and everything will be better. This isn’t a movie.”

“No, it isn’t. Wouldn’t it be a whole hell of a lot easier if it was, though?”

Melody laughed, though it wasn’t really a true laugh. More like a humorous huff. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It would be. We could trust that everything would work out and we’d be alright and then the movie would jump forward a few months or years or whatever, and they would show us having everything together instead of being the truly disaster parents we’re going to be.”

“Hey,” Mikey protested, “I might be a disaster but that doesn’t mean you are. You’ve got your shit together enough, as far as I can tell.”

Melody flat out snorted at that.

“I absolutely, one hundred percent do not. I think that’s why it's been so difficult watching you struggle. I keep hoping you’ll get it together enough to at least let me struggle with you, but you’re just convinced you have to fail on your own.”

She shrugged and pulled the tea bag out of her paper cup, dangling it above the water and letting the excess drip off before laying it on a napkin. Mikey couldn’t look away from her, stuck there blinking at her for lack of anything to say. He felt almost angry but he couldn’t even defend himself because she was right. Melody had moved onto blowing on her tea before any words came to him, and she had started to drink it by the time he had thought of anything worth saying.

“I don’t _want_ to fail.”

“Then don’t,” she answered, as if it were that simple.

“I can’t just decide not to fail. That’s not how it works.”

Mikey was fully prepared for Melody to argue with him, but instead she just fixed him with a look as she set her cup down again.

“Let me ask you this: do you think you had good parents?”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“Because it does.” She rolled her eyes and he was reminded of Izzy, who’d practically patented the move. “Do you remember being a kid and your parents wouldn’t let you go somewhere, or they would ground you for something that wasn’t really your fault, and you would say ‘When I grow up and have kids, I’m never going to act like them,’ or was that just me? It can’t just be me.”

“I mean, I guess that happened. I don’t remember. Why? What’s your point?”

“My point is, you know how to be a parent. You know what you liked and didn’t like about the way you were raised, at least enough to be able to have a starting point. Maybe that knowledge isn’t everything you need to know about babies or toddlers, but that’s what the books and the classes are for. No one knows everything about babies, everyone sucks at that part at first. But the actual parenting thing? Like all of the big decisions? You try to base it on what worked for you as a kid and what didn’t. Of course, not everything is going to be in favor of what you wanted as kid. Sometimes your parents told you no for your safety and well-being, and we’ll have to do that too.”

Mikey watched her as she spoke, finally winding down enough for him to be able to try to comprehend everything she was saying. He still wasn’t convinced.

“Okay, but what if I suck at making those decisions? What then?”

This time it seemed that Melody completely outdid herself – her eyes practically spun around in her head, she rolled them so hard. Izzy would have been impressed.

“You won’t, Mikey, and even if you do, then I’m supposed to be there to make sure you get some kind of check. That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re not doing this alone. We’re supposed to be a team. We’re supposed to do it together.”

She looked so earnest that Mikey felt horrible for having made her do so much on her own thus far. It was obvious that she felt alone when all she’d apparently wanted was for him to be there with her while she figured things out. It was yet another thing he hadn’t done right, but he couldn’t keep going back to that same place, not when Melody had basically just asked him not to. He wanted to succeed at this, and if he couldn’t do that, then he at least wanted to try not to fail.

Nodding to himself as he looked down at the table, he brought his gaze up to meet hers.

“You’re right. I’m really sorry that I’ve been such an ass.”

Melody shrugged, her face on its way to soft again, her expression much kinder than he deserved.

“It’s okay. You’re going to get yourself together, I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Mikey laughed, mostly unintentional. It would take more than this one conversation to change his default attitude, but held work on it, and he would get there. He had to. “I think you’re right.”

“I am, a lot. You should get used to that.”

Mikey smiled at her and sipped his tea. He could learn to like tea.

* * *

Before Ray and Dawn had separated, he would have thought that if he needed a change, that need would be satisfied by a break from his wife. Now that the unthinkable had occurred and they were actually separated, he didn’t think that was what he needed at all. He just kept going through his day to day, his life largely unaltered.

Sure, he had more time to himself now that he didn’t have to maintain a relationship with Dawn, but he didn’t know what to do with all that empty time, so he just ended up doing more of the same things he’d always done.

He fucked around with his guitar and he bought all of the new tech he could get his hands on and he did reviews on it, and he argued with people in the comments of his vlog about the accuracy of his reviews.

Ray knew he was very opinionated about some things, and technology was one of them, and while he was never one for confrontation (just ask his wife, who maintained that he would rather concede in any fight than engage in it), he was stubborn about his gadgets. Ray would never support something that didn’t do what it was supposed to and do it well, and he was very hard to impress.

There was this one guy — though Ray guessed he shouldn’t assume it was a guy, just because he’d gotten that impression. The person commented on everything Ray put up, and usually they disagreed with what Ray said. When Ray reviewed something positively, the other person had also tried it and hated it, and when Ray was disappointed in a product, they had loved it. The two of them went back and forth about everything.

Ray didn’t know exactly when this person had started watching his reviews, but he knew when he’d started noticing. There was this pedal that Ray had been amped up for but when it had arrived, it’d made everything sound completely unusable no matter the setting. He’d filmed and edited the video of his disappointed review as soon as he could because he had been talking about getting the pedal since the moment the production company had announced it. Some of his viewers were as excited as he was for him to get it and try it out. Ray remembered combing through the comments on the video a few days later, responding to everyone’s questions, and there it was. A comment from one _miserablenow80_ saying that they’d also gotten the pedal and it definitely didn’t do what Ray had said it did. Maybe, the viewer went on to say, Ray had gotten a faulty one, in which case he should exchange it for a new one and try again. Ray immediately piped back that it was pretty much bad form for a company to put out a brand new product that hadn’t been quality tested and thus had started a back and forth dispute that went on for a dozen comments.

In the end, Ray had listened to the person’s advice and exchanged the pedal for a new one, and while he was pleasantly surprised to find that the viewer had been right, he was just as irritated by the fact that he’d gotten a dud in the first place and now he had to retract his bad review. Still, within a few days, he made a second video stating that he had been wrong, and he gave a shout out to _miserablenow80_ at the end and jokingly told them not to get used to it.

It had been a good month since the pedal incident and their repertoire had been ongoing ever since. Sometimes Ray thought the person was doing it just to mess with him, but they actually seemed really intelligent and funny, and Ray liked that. Other people had been long-time viewers but they never engaged with him as much, and no one was as contrary as _miserablenow80_.

Ray was curious about the person behind the username, but not enough to ask for more information. What if they weren’t comfortable with sharing more information about themselves than their icon of a moody looking Morrissey provided? What if they preferred communicating in comments and didn’t actually want to message him? He didn’t actually know how to go about that anyways, though he supposed there was always a way, if he truly wanted to. Ray wasn’t sure that he did, though.

But he needed a change. The obvious solution was to go out drinking or dancing and find some new friends or someone to hook up with, but he was an adult now. He hadn’t been into that lifestyle even back when it was age-appropriate, and he remembered seeing older dudes then and thinking that there had to be better venues for that kind of thing. He definitely didn’t want to be the pathetic dude in a bar with young people trying to find friends or romantic interests, like he didn’t already have his life together, because he did. He totally did, he just felt like he wanted something new.

He could go out to the movies or something, but he liked going with his friends, and that was difficult enough with the six kids they had between them. Back when they’d been together, he and Dawn had occasionally hired a babysitter and gone out to the movies together, but she always wanted to watch some girly shit about falling in love and crying, and Ray was always uncomfortable with movies like that because they felt forced. She absolutely never wanted to go see the action or thriller ones he wanted to see, so he usually ended up waiting for them to come out on DVD and watching them by himself while she was away on business trips after the kids had gone to sleep. Those nights had been good nights, but that was probably because they had been the exception and not the norm. Now that he found himself doing that nearly every night, he found that there was a surprising lack of movies that he wanted to watch.

Since he didn’t want to go to the movies or watch one at home, and he didn’t want to bug Gerard, Mikey or Frank, and he didn’t want to go out to a bar, he was unsure of what to do. Tonight he felt like he might crawl out of his skin or something if he didn’t find something, anything to do. While he waited for inspiration to hit, he pulled up his newest video, to see if there were new comments, which there weren’t, and then picked up his guitar to mess around with something he had been playing probably as long as he’d known guitar, which at this point was more of his life than not. His computer made a sound and when he looked up, there was a notification from _miserablenow80_ , commenting on the video.

Ray set his guitar down in the stand and scrolled down to see the comment. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but was somehow surprised to see that they’d once again disagreed with him. It was pretty much par for the course, but Ray still held out hope that one day the two of them would agree on something. He typed out a comment that said as much, and waited for a few seconds to receive one back, though he knew people probably didn’t hang out on his blog as much as he did. Surprisingly, another comment came back almost instantly, and Ray wondered if it was a sign.

Without thinking too long about it, he clicked on the person’s username, navigating to their page and looking through it. There was nothing that immediately jumped out at him, other than the timezone, which was the same as his. But Eastern Time accounted for a huge slice of the world, he knew that, so it didn’t necessarily mean the person was close to him. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he knew he wasn’t finding it. Maybe some detail about the person, a gender or something, not that that really mattered.

Ray thought he was straight, at least most days. He’d always been attracted to girls and had therefore always pursued girls and had therefore always dated girls. Growing up that was just what everyone expected him to do and he wasn’t one for bucking the social norms, because really, who had the time? Definitely not Ray, who was more into math and technology and music. He was barely interested in dating at all until high school when his hormones attacked and suddenly the pursuit of sex started to occupy a large chunk of his focus. Even then, he resisted because there was so much cool shit going on with math and technology and music, but he couldn’t resist forever. He hadn’t ever really considered the alternative to dating girls until after he got together with Dawn, and by then there wasn’t really a point, considering he planned on spending the rest of his life with her.

That’d turned out to be exactly the opposite of how things had gone down, which was unfortunate because now Ray was in this awkward place that he thought he’d grown out of years and years ago. One of the best parts of getting married was that he didn’t have to worry about who he was bringing to family functions or how that might come across to his family. Now he was back to square one. Ray still kind of held out hope that he and Dawn would figure out their issues and get back together. That would be easier than the alternative, trying to untangle their separate and individual lives from the one they’d built together. He’d tried to explain this to her once, right after she moved out, and she definitely hadn’t taken it well. She’d actually cursed at him, which was something she didn’t usually do, considering that she felt curse words were ‘lazy.’ Ray had immediately held up his hands and apologized, though he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. He was just trying to keep their family together, and apparently that made him the bad guy.

Anyway, he wasn’t interested in dudes, or at least he wasn’t interested in being gay, or bisexual, or pansexual, or whatever it was called when someone liked more than just the opposite sex. When he watched porn he sometimes found himself watching the guy instead of the girl, but it was more of a curiosity, he told himself. He had gay friends, of course. Ray was pretty sure about half of his three closest friends were at least somewhat gay. Gerard had openly talked about one of his ex-boyfriends and Frank was too twitchy about touching to be anything other than a little gay. It wasn’t like Frank was afraid to touch people, because he wasn’t — he was definitely more cuddly than not — but it was obvious that he was careful how he touched people, almost too much so. It was like he was afraid of crossing a line without permission because he knew not everyone would be comfortable with it. There was no proof, and they’d never talked about it, but it was definitely the vibe Ray got. There were also rumors about Frank and his bandmate or something, Ray vaguely remembered. Now that Ray knew Frank had been married at the time, he was pretty sure those were bullshit, but they’d been started for a reason, maybe. Ray didn’t put much stock into gossip. But Mikey, Mikey was pretty straight. The night before at Frank’s show, the two of them had even bonded over which girls they found attractive, which Ray found kind of hilarious considering that it was a game he hadn’t really played since high school.

Anyways, Ray wasn’t about to make a life-changing decision about his sexuality this late in the game without some serious payoff, because Ray hated change. He liked the routine of his normal life, and he supposed that was what bugged him the most about splitting up with his wife. Everything was different now but it was also exactly the same. There wasn’t even a positive change, just an overall negative one. He ate takeout more often than he had before and his beloved movies weren’t as special as they had been when Dawn had lived there.

But none of that had anything to do with this _miserablenow80_ person. Ray wasn’t looking for a partner, anyways. Maybe a friend. He could be friends with anyone, he supposed, and he and this person were already friends, in a way. They had been talking for months, and even if it wasn’t about anything serious, it was still talking. He was still talking to someone, getting to know them, and now he wanted to get to know them more. It was a bit of a stretch, he knew, but he thought now was as good of a time as any. Ray found himself navigating to the private messaging function of his blog site and typing out a message. It wasn’t anything extraordinary or particularly interesting, just a greeting, and then a quick question asking why they seemed hellbent on taking jabs at every single one of Ray’s opinions. He tried to word it carefully so that it didn’t seem like he had a issue with them, and he ended up rewording it a few times. Eventually he settled on simply asking them if they were ever going to agree with him on anything, and even though it seemed a little forward, and perhaps a little flirty (did Ray even know how to flirt anymore? Had he ever?), he sent it without second-guessing it again.

As soon as the message was sent, Ray minimized the window and left the room to go find a drink. It wasn’t that he was nervous, he wasn’t really nervous ever, but he also wasn’t really accustomed to messaging strangers directly, out of sight from everyone else who cared to read. The message was innocent enough but it almost felt a little dirty, like he shouldn’t have sent it. Ray opened a beer and leaned against his kitchen counter, thinking about how he kind of wished he could take it back. He wondered if there was a way to get it back, to unsend the message. Maybe if the person hadn’t opened it yet or something. He went back to his computer to search if there was a way to undo sending a message only to open his browser to find that he’d already gotten a message back.

Ray had enough time to utter a curse before his brain caught up to his eyes, already parsing over the message, and he realized that there wasn’t any reason for him to be embarrassed, at least not at first glance. The message was pleasant, almost teasing, saying they might agree more when Ray stopped being wrong all the time. He chewed at his lip as he read it again, and then again for good measure. It wasn’t a bad message, at least, but he wasn’t really sure if it was good. He figured it was good enough that he didn’t really feel like breaking the flow of conversation by introducing himself or asking the other person to. They obviously watched his videos, and they knew who he was, and though Ray hadn’t been able to figure out any identifying information from the person’s profile, they would let him know if they wanted him to know more, he was sure.

He sent another message back saying that it was a bad idea to change horses in the middle of the race, which was something his dad had said, God rest his soul. This time, Ray didn’t wait around his computer for a reply or feel nervous about not receiving one. He had done something new to him, though it wasn’t much of a change. It was exciting enough that Ray felt okay going back to his movies. There had to be something on the shelf he hadn’t seen, and sure enough, there was an action movie he had bought and then completely forgot about. Putting it in the DVD player, he was in such a good mood that he even made himself popcorn. Change, it seemed, wasn’t all bad.


	5. Chapter 5

Frank knew he sucked as a dad. He got to watch Ray and Gerard be exceptional at it and as much as he tried not to compare himself, it was difficult when they seemed to have a much better handle on things than he did. Frank was sure their parent-teacher conferences had gone much better than his had, their kids were so well-behaved. His girls had been well-behaved once, but then he’d gone and left their mom and now they were half-orphans, if he even counted as a parent. The schools knew that the Iero family situation wasn’t exactly ideal, that there’d been trauma and loss, and they were forgiving to a degree, but they could only let so much slide.

Izzy was apparently protesting some offensive thing that’d been assigned by doing her homework but not turning it in. That was acceptable as far as standing up for herself went, but wasn’t so good for her grades. And that wasn’t all — Olly hadn’t been playing nice with the other kids, which seemed completely out of character for her. He was certain that the only reason Gemma hadn’t had a negative parent-teacher conference was because she spent all day with her grandma and his mom would never speak a harsh word about his girls. It didn’t matter that Gemma was an angel; before the conferences, Frank hadn’t thought he had anything to worry about with any of his kids. He had been absolutely wrong.

After he left Izzy’s school, Frank picked up his girls from his mom’s house, not saying much to anyone. Even when his mom asked him how it had gone, he just shrugged and changed the subject, telling the girls they had to get home so that they could host the get-together.

After the guys and their kids showed up, he stayed quiet pretty much all night, stewing in his own dark misery and forcing himself to laugh at everyone’s jokes only because it was expected of him.

As far as he could tell, there wasn’t much he could do to fix either of his girls’ problems. Even if there was a way, he didn’t know how, so he just opened another beer and drank it as he leaned against the counter, barely following along with the conversation. At some point Mikey and Ray went into the dining room and started a board game with the kids, and Frank only barely noticed the pointed look from Mikey to Gerard as he hung back, staying with Frank in the kitchen.

Gerard didn’t even have to say anything, he just looked at Frank, fixed him with a stare, and then headed up to Frank’s room, apparently expecting Frank to follow. The moment Frank crossed the threshold into his room, Gerard closed the door behind him and pinned him to it. Frank didn’t know how Gerard had known what he needed, but he was so grateful he could have cried. Gerard’s hands were on his shoulders and he didn’t even bother kissing him first before he was pushing him down to his knees, making sure he was steady there before he undid his pants.

Frank didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to do anything other than get down on the floor for Gerard and kiss him until neither of them could breathe. Deep down he knew he wasn’t actually a failure, but that didn’t matter because he felt like one, and he felt it so hard that there was barely room in his mind for him to feel anything else. He had to just accept the fact that he was going to feel lousy unless he did something to distract himself, and that something apparently was suck off Gerard.

Frank was still angry at him — they hadn’t done this since the last time it had been Frank’s turn to host. Instead of his normal routine of pushing Gerard against the wall and sucking him off, Gerard had taken control of the situation. Frank had liked it, but that didn’t mean he was happy about Gerard knowing him like that. The only reason that he was even going back to hooking up with Gerard was because the alternative was feeling like he was currently feeling, and that was completely unacceptable.

The one good thing about the clash they’d had a few weeks before was that it had apparently cleared up any confusion about their dynamic. Frank could tell that Gerard was only slightly hesitant, but he put a brave mask on as he tried to hide it. He wore a determined look on his face as he pulled his cock out over the waistband of his underwear. One hand went to Frank’s hair, and instead of pulling him forward, Gerard used his hold to push his head back against the door, and then he leaned forward with his hips. Frank wasn’t in any position to keep himself from giving in. He couldn’t even try to resist as Gerard pushed his dick into Frank’s mouth, but he also didn’t want to. His mouth watered just from being manhandled like that, flooding with so much spit that Gerard slid easily between his lips. Gerard’s thrusts were shallow, just the tip moving over Frank’s tongue, but he was in control of the whole thing.

He started out slow, his thrusts easy and unhurried, but then Frank started sucking at what he could, making Gerard moan, and suddenly Frank was getting his mouth fucked with nowhere to go. He let himself give into the feeling, simply letting go of everything else on his mind and focusing on the give and take of Gerard’s dick, on the way his jeans felt underneath Frank’s fingertips as he clenched at Gerard’s denim clad thighs, trying to keep some semblance of control. The door was solid against his back, his head tipped against it and tapping on it each and every time Gerard pushed his hips forward.

Frank couldn’t help but moan around Gerard’s dick at the sheer aggression of it. It was just what he needed, to lose himself in this act where all of his control was gone, and he felt so grateful that he wanted to do more, wanted to give Gerard all that he could. He started to lap his tongue at the underside of Gerard’s dick in earnest, making him let out this strangled moan that Frank took to mean he liked it. He wasn’t getting much deeper than when he had first started, but Frank knew from countless times blowing Gerard that the tip of his dick was definitely the most sensitive. Frank tightened his lips and sucked, making Gerard’s rhythm falter for the shortest of moments, and then he intentionally moaned around the tip, the vibrations all around the tip of Gerard’s dick.

Before Frank knew it, Gerard was unloading on his tongue, the taste of the warm liquid slightly salty and bitter, somewhere between the two flavors that wasn’t particularly pleasant but also wasn’t unbearable. After Gerard finished twitching and pulled his hips back, Frank stuck out his tongue for him to see it pooled there. The action earned a groan as Gerard looked down at him, and then Frank tipped his head back, swallowing it. He wiped his mouth off on his forearm and then leaned forward to bite at Gerard’s hip, ignoring the small yelp of pain as he sucked right where he’d bitten, pulling away to look at the mark he’d left. Frank wasn’t sure what had possessed him to leave one, but he had just felt the urge and he wasn’t trying to overthink it. He didn’t think Gerard was sleeping with anyone anyways, but he liked it when his partners left marks, when he could see them after and touch them, the tenderness reminding him of how they’d been given. Maybe Gerard was the same way.

When Frank stood up in front of Gerard, his knees aching from being pressed to the floor for so long, he leaned back against the door, his chin tilted up defiantly as Gerard frowned at him. They still hadn’t said anything, and Frank was daring Gerard to do so, to start a conversation that neither of them wanted to have. A chorus of cheers filtered upstairs from the game downstairs and they pulled away from each other, realizing they were out of time. Gerard left first, leaving Frank in his bedroom to pull himself together. He was hard, but he didn’t have time to deal with it, nor did he think he deserved it. Denying himself was a thing for Frank, who loved to feel his own aches and poke at them until they bloomed into full-on pain. He tucked his hard-on underneath his waistband and went into the bathroom to splash cold water over his face. By the time he decided he could be in the same room with Gerard without thinking about either punching or kissing him, he could hear movement downstairs.

Ray and his boys were putting their coats on at the door and Frank nodded in acknowledgement as Ray muttered something to him about getting homework done before the boys went to their mom’s. His girls had been doing their homework at their grandma’s, but apparently he couldn’t trust that meant they’d turn it in. The reminder that he’d have to keep more of an eye on Izzy’s schoolwork from now on dissolved what was left of the floaty feeling from what’d happened upstairs.

Frank looked around to find Gerard and Hunter sitting on the couch, working on putting Hunter’s shoes back on, but Gerard was determinedly avoiding his gaze, or maybe just concentrating intensely on tying his kid’s shoes. The girls were still in the kitchen with Mikey, and Frank thought they were out of earshot enough that he could talk to Gerard and Ray.

“Hey, um, have either of you heard or seen anything about Olly misbehaving? Like have either of your kids said anything?”

Ray tilted his head to the side, looking about as confused as Frank felt regarding the situation, and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think I have. That doesn’t sound like her though.”

“I know, that’s what I said.” That was somewhat validating, that Ray hadn’t even known his kid that long, but knew her well enough to know she wasn’t the kind of kid to willingly misbehave. Reluctantly, he turned to Gerard, who was locked in a staring match with Hunter. Frank wondered if Gerard had even heard him until he realized that Hunter had frozen as if there was something he wasn’t saying, and Gerard had ceased moving too.

“Actually, there’s apparently been a situation involving Hunter.” Gerard looked up from his son, who was frantically shaking his head, and Frank could tell from the set of the kid’s shoulders that he was about to burst into tears. “Some kids on the playground have been picking on Hunter and Olly stood up for him, only Hunter was too afraid to speak up when the teacher asked what was going on. The other kids involved told Miss Kay that Olly had started it.” He looked disappointed and sad, with either his kid or himself or both, and Frank frowned. He didn’t fault Hunter, who was on the small side even for a little kid; he had always been that kid too.

If anything, Frank felt relieved, because that meant one less thing he’d managed to fuck up. Olly wasn’t a bad kid, and he almost felt guilty for thinking that he knew his kid less than some teacher who’d only known her a few months. Gerard looked guilty too, chewing at his lip like he had something else to say, so Frank wasn’t surprised when he took a breath to call attention back to himself.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. Hunter just told me earlier today, after he came home from school with his lunchbox cracked and I asked what had happened.” Frank frowned, mostly because he could see and hear Hunter crying right next to Gerard, and it made him feel uneasy. “I was going to tell you tonight but I kind of forgot.”

“No, it’s okay.” Frank shook his head and repeated himself for Hunter’s benefit. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.” Frank ignored the rosy tint to Gerard’s cheeks — he knew exactly why Gerard had forgotten — and he hoped Ray was too busy getting his kids zipped into their coats to notice. Frank crossed to the front of the couch, kneeling down in front of Hunter. The little boy had tears running down both of his cheeks and he was letting out these small, quiet sobs that were all that much more painful to watch because he obviously didn’t want to be crying. He wouldn’t look at Frank, instead staring at the floor as he unsuccessfully attempted to blink back his tears.

“Hey,” Frank started in a small voice that he hoped was soothing. He reached his hand out to rub Hunter’s shoulder, trying to get his attention, but that didn’t work so he ducked his head into Hunter’s line of vision. He always forgot about Hunter’s heterochromia until he was looking directly at him, but he thought it was incredibly cool. “Have I ever told you that I was the smallest kid at my school all the way until graduation?”

Hunter bit his lip, looking at Frank and trying to bite back his emotions, failing when he let out a small hiccup and sob. Eventually he shook his head in response to Frank’s question, so Frank nodded in reassurance.

“I swear. All the way through school, I was tiny. Not as small as you, but not much bigger, and when everyone else started to grow, I pretty much just stayed the same size. I stopped growing for awhile when I was just a little taller than Logan.” Both of them looked over at him, where he was standing there with Ray, his eyes wide either from the surprise of being mentioned or because of what Frank was saying. Either way, the look on his face made Hunter let out a small giggle, and the tension in Frank’s shoulders eased as he looked back at him.

“I got picked on all the time by bigger kids. Once, I even got stuffed into a locker. You know what those are?” Frank watched as Hunter frantically shook his head and he grinned. “It’s this big metal thing cabinet you put your backpack into in high school. I don’t even know if they have them anymore, but anyways. They aren’t big enough to fit a normal sized person, but I was small. Some bigger kids thought it would be funny to pick me up and shove me into one, and then they locked me in it. It wasn’t even my locker! At least mine had my lunch in there, but I was stuck in some girl’s locker. I couldn’t snack on anything until she found me an hour later.” The situation hadn’t been funny at the time, but it had been many years since, and it was a lot more humorous in hindsight. Frank’s tone was entertaining, emphasizing the words to make it sound ridiculous, so he understood when Hunter started giggling.

After a moment, he brought the moment back to his original point. “I understand that the bigger kids can pick on you, and even some of the smaller ones, if they’re mean enough. You should always feel comfortable telling your dad, but that doesn’t mean that you have to feel bad if you can’t tell anyone else. Sometimes it’s scary.”

Hunter sniffed, and Frank rubbed his shoulder as he wiped his face off with his sleeve. “Don’t think I’m mad at you or at Olly for not saying anything. I’m proud of Olly for sticking up for her friends, and that includes you.” Hunter nodded, and Frank gave him a reassuring smile. “I promise, it’s okay. We’ll talk to the teacher next week and get it sorted, okay?”

He repeated himself when Hunter didn’t answer. “Okay, buddy?”

“Okay.” Hunter’s voice still sounded a little worn down by tears, but at least he wasn’t actively crying anymore. Frank patted his shoulder and stood up, his knees cracking. He felt so old sometimes, but at least he wasn’t a complete failure.

* * *

Gerard didn’t know exactly when he’d consciously realized that he had feelings for Frank. Was it the second time Frank had pulled him aside and gotten down on his knees, or was it the third? Was it that time that Frank had been hosting and seriously misjudged the amount of food needed and sent everyone home with hand-packed leftovers? Was it when he’d caught Gerard’s eye while they were listening to all three kindergartners telling a story from class, and winked? Gerard was pretty certain that‘d made his heart stop, at least for a second. Regardless of when it’d happened, by the time he realized, his feelings were already rooted fairly deep. There was nothing Gerard could imagine doing to make his feelings for Frank any less intense.

Frank got under his skin, left him reeling after every single time they were together. They wouldn’t even do anything sexual and Gerard would still think about moments or things that had happened with Frank for hours after. Gerard found himself remembering of the times they’d laughed together or had conversations, even basic boring ones. When he couldn’t sleep, he thought of Frank’s face, smiling, laughing, frowning. He had apparently paid far more attention to Frank than he’d thought, because he knew him, knew him more than he’d even thought possible, and in a weird way, he missed him when he wasn’t around. He wasn’t quite sure how that was possible, because other than when they’d snuck off together, Gerard hadn’t actually spent all that much time with Frank one on one. How did he miss someone he only knew like that? Gerard didn’t know.

But he missed the girls too when they weren't around in a way that he didn’t really miss Ray’s kids. On days when they weren’t all gathered together, Gerard found himself wondering how Izzy’s math test had ended up going, or whether Gemma was still drawing all over her skin so that she’d have tattoos like her dad. Maybe he was especially interested in their well-being because he knew that Frank was doing it on his own. He didn’t know what had happened with Frank’s marriage and he would never ask. Wherever the girls’ mom was, she wasn’t still in the picture like Dawn was. Frank was as alone as Gerard was, and there was a kind of kinship in that even if Frank hadn’t recognized it or didn’t feel it. Gerard did, and there was no obligation for Frank to return it. He thought that it was better for people to have others on their side even if they didn’t know it, but the support was there. That was what mattered.

After realizing how he felt about Frank, Gerard had let the knowledge quietly flood through him, not pressing it or dwelling on it, just being quiet and letting it work itself into his life. He didn't need anything from Frank, didn't even need to let him know about it. He just wanted to take it in himself, to understand what he was feeling without having to tell anyone. Gerard hadn’t even told Mikey, though he was sure that if there was anyone who’d catch on without him even having to say anything, it would be his brother. Mikey knew him better than anyone, and Gerard was hesitant to let him know because Mikey also knew exactly how long it had been since he’d actually cared about someone. Gerard didn’t need to tell him though — he knew what Mikey would say. He knew Mikey wanted him to be careful. As much as Mikey liked Frank, he wasn’t the biggest fan of his temper, and he grew quiet each time it showed itself. Mikey was quiet a lot, but there was a stillness to him that someone would only catch onto if they really knew Mikey. Frank wasn’t in that category, though Gerard had been surprised to find that Ray was, and he wondered about that almost as much as he pondered what he felt about Frank.

He started to watch the way Ray and Mikey acted around each other, wondering if maybe he and Frank weren’t the only ones who’d fallen into something that wasn’t exactly platonic. Gerard didn’t really think that was the case, but he was concerned anyway, given everything else going on with Mikey. He was still Mikey’s big brother, still protective over him, and he didn’t think he would ever get over that, not when he still remembered what it had been like each and every time Mikey had gone to him about the big things in his life. He had trusted Gerard with being afraid, with his anxieties. Gerard wasn’t ever going to forget, no matter how long it had been, or much fewer and further between those times were becoming. Mikey wasn’t nervous so much anymore, but Gerard was determined to be there for him regardless.

Mikey and Ray weren’t actually doing anything, anyways. They rarely touched each other, but it seemed intentional, like they were both hyperaware of the distance between them. It was similar with him and Frank, only there was definitely an obvious attempt to avoid each other there. Maybe Mikey and Ray had chosen not to acknowledge it and wouldn’t, though Gerard wondered if they were even aware of the tension. He thought about asking Mikey, but he didn’t think that’d be fair, considering that he hadn’t even told Mikey about his own feelings. These days, Gerard was all about fairness.

Eventually he was forced to let the train of thought go, though he kept it in the back of his mind. He was reminded of it again each time that Ray and Mikey shared a look or a secret smile, or each time they were left alone when he and Frank snuck off and they either chose to ignore it or didn’t actually notice, or when the two of them sat together on the couch while everyone settled down for a movie. Gerard almost paid more attention to their relationship (or lack of one) than he did the one he and Frank weren’t speaking about.

Still, it’d gotten to the point where Gerard could tell when there was something wrong with Frank. He was pretty easy for Gerard to read, and he might not always know exactly what emotion was going through Frank’s system, but he typically had at least an idea. To know Frank Iero was to know just how much he felt at all times. It was like he felt everything, the good, bad, and in between, and he felt it all at once, so fully he was completely unable to keep it to himself.

It made sense that he needed to give himself over to Gerard, to give up his control just to not feel for some amount of time. Gerard understood why that might offer some kind of relief, why it’d be something that Frank would want and seek out again and again. Maybe he’d gotten used to the numbness back in his touring days, using alcohol or drugs or both. Frank hadn’t ever confessed that he had a problem with either, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t experimented. Even Gerard had taken some pills that he wasn’t entirely sure the origin of back when he was in college, and he hadn’t even been all depressed so much as lonely.

Still, the more that Gerard thought about it, the more he realized his expectations and realizations about Frank were right on the mark. Frank gave himself up to things he couldn’t control, and eventually Gerard had had to call him out for it. Part of it was that he’d wanted to figure out Frank’s needs to better help him, and part of it was that he just really fucking wanted to touch him. He’d wanted to reciprocate, and so far Frank hadn’t let that happen, not even once.

Gerard knew that Frank’s pleasure was linked to his own; it was obvious from the way that Frank moaned as he let Gerard fuck his throat. But that wasn’t enough for Gerard, who was giving something that was more important than just taking away someone’s control (though maybe he wanted to do even more of that, because Gerard had an elaborate fantasy about tying Frank down to a bed and touching him however he wanted to). The want only grew more and more intense each and every time Frank took him into the bathroom or upstairs. Eventually he couldn’t contain himself anymore and he’d taken matters into his own hands.

Gerard had taken even more control of the situation, and he wondered if maybe Frank hated him for it. He certainly hadn’t seemed particularly happy afterwards, despite having moaned more than usual. Though half of his moans had been curses, some of them aimed at Gerard... Each and every word from Frank had been barbed, especially after he had finished, and Gerard had taken care to ignore it the time. He held onto them for later- It was his own penance, maybe, though as soon as he’d left he had wondered if maybe Frank did hate him. Frank had blown him again since then, but hadn’t been particularly affectionate, so Gerard was still undecided. He wondered if Frank felt any affection for him at all, or if Gerard was just fooling himself into thinking that there was more between them than there actually was. Frank was a difficult person to understand, despite the way his emotions bled out into everything that he touched or breathed on, and Gerard couldn’t get a good read on where they stood without asking him.

For the first time since they had regularly started hanging out once a week, Gerard showed up to Ray’s one Friday and found that Frank and his girls weren’t there. He hadn’t realized just how much space Iero family, always short in stature but big in energy, had been taking up until they weren’t there. Everything felt a bit too empty for Gerard’s liking without Frank and his girls. It was possible that he was just running late, though Frank seemed more punctual than Gerard had ever been. He asked Ray where Frank was, and Ray just shrugged, saying that Frank had texted to let him know he wouldn’t be there that night. That was apparently enough for Mikey, who, up til that moment, had seemed concerned about Frank too, but with Ray’s explanation Mikey let it go.

Gerard wasn’t as easy to appease, and he immediately started to worry that he’d somehow pissed Frank off so much that he was pulling away from their group altogether. They hadn’t spoken much the week before, not counting the way the two of them had snuck upstairs, and Gerard definitely didn’t think that was enough of a conversation to qualify. There hadn’t really been words so much as moans, and Frank had seemed just as angry with him when they went back downstairs as he had when they’d left. It wasn’t as if Gerard blamed him, not really. He’d just been so sick of letting Frank use him to work off his energy that he’d felt the need to call him out on it, and now Frank wasn’t speaking to him, and he realized that he should’ve probably passed that plan through Mikey, except of course the whole thing with Frank and Gerard was a secret, which was why he hadn’t told him ages ago.

Keeping secrets from Mikey was difficult and went against everything that Gerard wanted to maintain about he and his brother’s relationship, but he hadn’t had a choice. He wasn’t sure if Frank wanted it to be a secret, but he had never brought it up in conversation, not even to Gerard. That had to mean that he didn’t want his business out like that. Gerard didn’t really blame him after the years he’d spent in the public spotlight, but he did wish that Frank would say something to him, at the very least. The closest they had come to talking about it had been when Gerard had pinned him against the wall two weeks ago to jerk him off and get his attention by calling him on his neediness and how it was disrupting Gerard’s life. He’d never actually meant to disrupt Frank’s life in return.

But apparently, that was what he had done. Neither Mikey nor Ray seemed to notice that Gerard remained quiet throughout the evening, or at least they didn’t say anything if they did. Gerard did catch Mikey staring at him oddly a few times. His expression would’ve been difficult to read if Gerard hadn’t grown up with him, but he ignored the concern there. It wasn’t him that Mikey should be concerned about.

Gerard just didn’t understand why it was so easy for the two of them not to worry about Frank, to just accept his excuse without any further questions. Apparently their friendships with Frank didn’t involve concerning themselves with knowing the reasons behind breaking weekly traditions.

Gerard fixated on Frank’s absence throughout the entire meal, then the entire night. The kids had a suspiciously calm get-together without any of the Iero girls present, and he wondered if maybe they were usually the instigators or if the boys just felt off-kilter without them too. It seemed weird to him without the other family there, like there was a massive piece of the dynamic missing. Usually Izzy would be reading in the corner or Olly would inevitably make a mess or Gemma would burst out crying without warning if she judged that there was no one paying enough attention to her.

When it was time for the Ways to head out, Gerard still couldn’t let it go. They had taken one car since Mikey didn’t have to work that night, and while he drove home Gerard convinced Mikey that it’d be a good idea to drop him and Hunter off so Gerard could go check on Frank. Mikey insisted that it was actually a bad idea, but he gave in anyways, as he was prone to do when it came to Gerard’s decisions. Gerard took this to mean that Mikey secretly supported him in everything he did, and Mikey assured him that this was absolutely not the case. Still, Gerard kissed Hunter and Bunny goodnight in the parking lot, Mikey promised that he’d put him to bed on time, and Gerard headed to the Iero house.

Gerard didn’t hesitate, after he parked on the street, he got out of his car and rushed up to the Ieros’ front door, knocking almost frantically. He’d worked himself into an anxious fit on during the drive. Over what? He didn’t really know. For some reason he’d started to think that maybe Frank was done with their get-togethers and it was all because of Gerard and his stupid mouth, and his mind, and how he had to think the best of people, and to him, that meant that he’d said what he’d said to Frank because it was what he needed, and maybe Gerard really did want Frank to be what he needed. All of that had rung through his head as he’d driven, and it repeated itself as he waited at the front door and wondered which of his thoughts were true and which were a product of overthinking.

All of it fell away a few moments later when Frank opened the door wrapped in a blanket. It was obvious from his appearance that he was ill, and Gerard just stood there, his hand still lifted to where he had been about to knock at the door again.

“You’re sick.”

Frank sniffed and nodded, pulling his blanket closer around himself. “I am, yeah. The girls, too.”

“That’s why— oh. I thought…” Gerard paused, letting his words hang. Frank could probably figure out exactly what he had thought. Gerard didn’t need to make even more of a fool out of himself by admitting it aloud, so he just stood there, shifting from foot to foot and staring at Frank. The moment dragged on, and Gerard didn’t know what to say, but he wanted to apologize, wanted there to be absolutely no chance of Frank leaving their friend group because of him and some stupid thing he’d said. He knew it wasn’t exactly the right time, because he’d just shown up on Frank’s doorstep with no notice, and it wasn’t exactly like he’d come for that express purpose, but he had to do it before he lost his nerve. “Listen, I—"

“Do you want to come in?”

Gerard froze because he very much did, and he very much wanted to leave, and he very much wanted to go back in time and choose just to stay home instead of coming to check on Frank. Going into Frank’s house without Hunter felt like an intimate gesture that Gerard had no right to, but Frank was there and Frank was asking and Gerard couldn’t think of a set of circumstances in the entire world in which Frank asked for anything and Gerard could tell him no. So when Frank invited him into his house, he went.

There was something about Frank curled up in a blanket that hit all of his soft spots, that left him wondering if Frank needed to be held or cuddled or coddled, if maybe there was a version of the future in which he could do those things without being cursed out. He let himself wonder even though he knew he shouldn’t hope for anything more with Frank. Gerard knew better, but he hoped anyways. He hoped and he let himself hope, and he found himself aching to ask, to cross that conversational bridge they’d never let themselves cross before. Gerard knew that under normal circumstances, Frank would probably tell him there was nothing to talk about. But with Frank sick, when Frank was softer than normal and feeling under the weather, Gerard wondered if he might be able to get through to him. He wondered if that was taking unfair advantage of the situation, but he thought that maybe an unfair advantage was needed to get through to Frank.

Frank had to be feeling truly sick to answer the door with a blanket wrapped around him. Still, he’d let him in, making Gerard feel like anything was possible. If Frank had let him into his house, maybe he would let him into his life. There were far more ridiculous things in the universe than that hope, it seemed.

Frank didn’t say anything when Gerard headed into the kitchen, though he didn’t follow him either. He just sat back on the couch all curled up and coughed into his sleeve. Gerard guessed from the mountain of tissues surrounding the area that was where Frank had been when Gerard had knocked, though it’d taken him awhile to get to the door. He was sure that it was because Frank was tired, knocked out by some cold that probably wouldn’t have been all that intense in anyone else, but in Frank’s fragile body, it’d turned into a monster.

He knew Frank’s immune system was pretty shitty, because Frank had talked multiple times about how he’d always been sick growing up. Frank had even told the story about how once it’d almost kept him from being promoted into the next grade, but his mom had gone before the school board and pleaded his case. She had taken his state test scores and all of his homework, all packed up in a little file, with copies made for the board to review, and they’d let Frank pass. Gerard saw the same fierce parenting in Frank even if Frank wasn’t really sure of his own abilities. Gerard knew that Frank would go to the ends of the earth for all three of his kids at any given moment, and he didn’t even need to ask if that were true. He just knew that it was.

Gerard wondered how it was possible that he’d ever considered anything other than illness at first. Of course Frank being sick was the reason he hadn’t shown up to the club meeting. It was starting to get cold, and kids were getting runny noses and wiping their snot on everything in sight, and it was inevitable everyone would get sick, especially the Ieros, who had shitty immune systems in the first place.

Gerard immediately went to the stove to start boiling hot water for tea. He wanted to make tea even if the only thing Frank would do with it was hold onto it, even if the steam just made him feel better. Frank was sick and Gerard wanted to help in any way that he could, even if that was just to make him some fucking tea. He could help, a little, or hoped he could, if Frank would let him.

While he waited for the water to boil, Gerard walked back into the living room and picked up Frank’s tissues. Frank told him that he didn’t have to do that, really, but Gerard just shook his head. He knew he didn’t have to, he explained, and he would be sure to wash his hands really well after, but Frank had three kids and letting this shit sit around would just make it worse. Frank knew he was right, so he piped down again. Gerard was happy to clean up after Frank; it gave him something to do, and he wondered if maybe there was also cleaning up in Frank’s life to be done. The thought was so beyond ridiculous that Gerard almost laughed, though he wasn’t about to let Frank know what he found so funny, so he kept it together.

He wasn’t all that sure that Frank would even realize that Gerard was laughing. He looked so miserable all curled up in the corner of the couch, still shivering despite the number of blankets that were wrapped around him. Gerard found another hanging over the back of another chair and tucked it over his lap, ignoring Frank’s frown but accepting his thanks. He knew he shouldn’t be coddling him without permission, but with all the years that Darcy had been sick, Gerard was practically a professional at coddling sick people.

He knew that Frank knew this because they’d once had a full conversation about it. It’d been one of the first times Frank had shown an interest in Gerard’s past, and Gerard had been truly touched. It wasn’t that Frank didn’t care, because he clearly did, it was just that sometimes he seemed so withdrawn and wrapped up in his own things that it was clear he didn’t have much energy for anything but him and his girls. Gerard understood that it was them and them alone against the world, and he would absolutely never ask Frank to let his life be anything else.

As he considered it, he realized how foolish it was to think that he had any semblance of control over Frank’s life or attitude. Despite the blowjobs and the sneaking around and the covert feelings, Gerard knew that Frank was Frank’s alone, that he belonged to no one, even if it felt like he belonged to Gerard in those moments that they spent together. He knew that Frank wasn’t his, not at all, but he hoped there was a future where he might be.

Gerard went back into the kitchen when the kettle started to screech, and first, he washed his hands thoroughly as promised. He wasn’t about to get sick, or make things worse by touching more than he had to with germs on his hands. He hadn’t asked Frank the exact situation with the girls, and it was possible that not all of them were as sick as their dad, so it was best to be cautious. He went through Frank’s cabinets until he found the tea, picked one that was specifically supposed to help with colds and let it steep, leaning against the counter as he waited.

His mind was whirring, filtering through the signs again and again. He and Frank hadn’t talked about anything at all yet, and Gerard knew that meant that there was a ton for them to discuss if only Frank would let them discuss it. He wanted to talk about it, practically needed to. Gerard was one of those people who talked something to death in order to understand it, and he didn’t understand any of what was happening with Frank. He wanted to though, if Frank would let him.

Frank was still sitting on the couch when Gerard came in with tea, taking it gratefully and holding it under his nose, inhaling the steam. This was obviously far from his first time being sick, and Gerard sat down at the other end of the couch, happy that Frank had picked up on his intentions without him having to say. They worked well together, that couldn’t be ignored, and Frank had to have noticed it too. It was too obvious for it to be a secret, and Frank wasn’t oblivious.

The two of them sat there in silence for a long while, Frank sipping at his tea as it grew cold enough to be consumed. Gerard just stared at his hands, tucked together in his lap. He was trying so hard not to look at Frank too much, not to want to touch him, though of course he did. He found himself longing to pull Frank into his lap and touch his hair and soothe him to sleep. He’d done that a lot for Darcy on her really difficult days, so he knew he was good at it, that hadn’t even been romantic.

He and Darcy had never once slept together, even though they had joked about how much cheaper it would be to make a baby. But Darcy was a lesbian, and while she found Gerard aesthetically attractive, she wasn’t interested in him either romantically or sexually. They had gone to a doctor for Hunter and been blessed beyond words. Gerard had been some mixture of her best friend and the father of her child and later her caretaker, although there’d been round the clock hospice care closer to the end. Gerard did have to work some and keep his job, after all. Darcy’d had life insurance, a good plan, and the insurance company had definitely lost the bet when she had grown ill with a cancer that she ended up losing. But Hunter was the beneficiary to that, with caveats for his education and living expenses, and Gerard was to be the manager of his estate until Hunter either graduated from college or reached the age of twenty-one. At least he didn’t have to worry about that- He’d heard Frank and Ray fretting over how they were going to send their kids to college when it came time and Frank had groaned and said aloud that he hoped maybe one of of his kids would follow in his footsteps and skip college altogether.

Frank started coughing again and Gerard wanted to pat his back, though he wasn't sure that was allowed. Even after Frank stopped, his hands were itching to brush through his hair. He’d felt it often enough when Frank had sucked him off; it was hard not to pull Frank’s hair when he moaned each time Gerard did. But there were different ways to touch and Gerard hadn’t gotten more than a few brief seconds of touching Frank’s hair in a way that wasn't completely possessive and sort of aggressive.

Eventually Frank looked at him and Gerard returned the gaze, not really sure what Frank was looking for. He seemed to be searching Gerard’s face for something though, and Gerard wondered if he would find it. He was surprised when Frank drained his tea, letting out a small cough afterwards, and then sat up as soon as the cup was set to the side on a table. Gerard frowned and almost moved, but then Frank turned and Gerard froze as Frank shifted and laid down on the couch, his head in Gerard’s lap, all of his own accord.

Frank was a mirage, he was pretty sure. Gerard wondered if maybe he’d gotten sick in the short time he’d been here, if maybe his brain was tricking him into this as part of a fever. But the weight of Frank’s head was heavy in his lap, and when Gerard lowered his hands, Frank’s shoulders were solid underneath them. Frank let out a sigh that Gerard took as encouragement as he pressed his fingertips to Frank’s temple and started to stroke his hair back away from his face.

Eventually they had to talk. Gerard knew that. But if they could just wait a moment, if Gerard could soak up enough of this, then maybe, just maybe, he would have enough to live off of when it all came crashing down. Gerard was sure that it would— when it was all said and done, Frank wouldn’t be into him past the whole physical release thing. Gerard just wasn’t a good match for him, with his messy emotions and thoughts, and with his life that bled into everything that he came into contact with. Frank needed someone with structure, and that was the exact opposite Gerard. Frank liked routine and Gerard liked it too, but he struggled with being able to stick to one.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, just that there were so many good things that could be found outside of the routine. He didn’t know how he was supposed to create art, good and honest and true art, if he had to stay between the lines. That wasn’t what art was, and Gerard knew that. He’d struggled with it back in his community college art classes, when they’d tried to teach him the correct way to do everything rather than letting him experiment on his own. Gerard had been under so much stress that he wasn’t positive that hadn't been what eventually turned him to drinking.

He kept stroking Frank’s hair, listening to him sigh each time his fingers pressed to his temple or the back of his neck, and he took comfort in the fact that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t crazy. He just wanted to help in whatever way he could, and Frank was the person who controlled that, who could choose to either let Gerard help or chase him off, and he hoped that this was a step in the direction of the former rather than the latter. It took him awhile to realize that Frank had actually fallen asleep, his hand curled around Gerard’s knee as if he found comfort in someone solid beneath him. Gerard wondered how long it had been since someone had touched Frank like this, how many times he had been sick all on his own without anyone to take care of him. He wondered if it’d been something Frank’s ex-wife had once done for him, back when things were good for them, or if things had been bad for so long that Frank couldn’t even remember her doing it. He wondered if Frank had been taken care of like this since he was a kid.

* * *

Mikey knew that according to the rules of society, he wasn’t supposed to have feelings for anyone other than the mother of his child. He didn’t think that the rules really applied if he’d barely had feelings for her when they had been together, and he definitely didn’t have them now that they had broken up, even if they were having a kid together. He and Gerard had argued about the ‘decent’ thing to do, and he was sure his brother was concerned about him being a dad. Mikey wanted to do as much of the right thing as he could even if that didn’t involve actually being in a relationship with the mother of his child.

They’d tried to go to the baby boutique again a week after the first time, and it had been a disaster. Mikey had known that Melody was a new age hipster kind of girl, but she was even worse than Gerard and Darcy had been when Hunter was born, and they’d lived in Seattle, the hipster capital of the world. According to Melody, everything that would be around the baby needed to be GMO free and paint free in case of lead and also free of about a thousand other things. It left Mikey thinking their poor kid would grow up without much of anything, considering that everything in the world was bad. That immediately sent him in a tailspin because if everything in the world was actually bad, how in the world were they supposed to contain it? How were they supposed to keep the kid safe? They couldn’t possibly, and after he’d gotten home, he’d had his first panic attack in years.

Gerard either had heard him flailing around or he had really good timing, because he’d walked into Mikey’s room and immediately started talking him into calm down. When Mikey was able to breathe again, Gerard had been sitting behind him, hugging him and putting pressure around his chest with his arms, and Mikey’d felt completely wrung out. He’d explained the situation to Gerard, and his brother had just shaken his head. “You just do the best you can. You can’t protect them from everything, and even if you could, there are things that could go wrong that you don’t even have any bit of control over.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for Mikey, but apparently it was the only one that was forthcoming, because Gerard had simply patted him on his back and told him to come get him if he needed anything before leaving the room. He had re-entered almost immediately, remembering the thing he’d come in for originally, and had asked Mikey what he thought about dinosaurs. Sometimes Mikey hated the fact this brother was so one-track minded about things.

After that, Mikey had foregone the trips with Melody to the baby stores for his own health. He assured her that it wasn’t because he didn’t care, because he did. He just told her that he would get whatever she decided on, all she had to do was give him a list, which prompted the “Two of Everything” conversation again.

The “Two of Everything” conversation was necessary because Melody and Mikey were not living together. Presumably they were sharing custody, which meant that presumably, their baby would need one of everything at each house. A crib, a changing table, a high chair, a rocking chair, probably like a thousand other kinds of chairs. It would make the baby shower difficult, apparently, though Mikey was pretty confident that he could just get everything on his own, and that he definitely didn’t need a rocking chair. Melody just frowned and hummed at him before shrugging, but she hadn’t pressed the situation, just told him that she would put together a list of what he would need and put two of everything on their registry.

The whole thing was actually pretty modern and mature of them, Mikey thought. They weren’t arguing about it, or trying to force themselves to stay together. They were doing the right thing for their kid, and it was time for society to evolve to catch up.

When he brought this up to the guys while they were hanging out that Friday, Frank had laughed and almost spit out his beer. He assured Mikey that it was just the way he had worded it, not what he was saying, but he did continue talking about it after Mikey pressed him.

“Dude, I’m not saying you’re wrong. It’s just that the whole argument against gay people is that the nuclear family needs to be protected. If you try to change the stereotypical family model, society is gonna fight you.”

Ray, whose opinion Mikey was really interested in, remained silent on the subject, and Mikey wondered if that was because he didn’t care or because it was something that hit too close to home for him. It was hard to tell with Ray sometimes. Gerard was of absolutely no help, he just went on and on about how it was important that Mikey didn’t listen to society anyways, that he and Darcy hadn’t done the typical family thing. Frank fixed Gerard with a weird look that Mikey couldn’t read, and then the conversation turned to the new action movie coming out that weekend because Ray had apparently won tickets to go.

Later on in the evening, Ray found Mikey when he was sitting in the living room, watching some show with a few of the kids. He sat down next to Mikey as a cartoon pig on-screen started yelling about the color of its dress. Ray didn’t look at him, but he did lean a little towards him to whisper an aside to him out of earshot of the kids.

“I didn’t even know pigs wore dresses.” Ray’s comment made Mikey snort, and Ray’s answering grin was wide and bright, apparently pleased that his joke had hit its mark.

The two of them sat there in relative silence until a commercial break had all of the kids rushing into the kitchen so that they could get dessert, as Ray had promised them cookies earlier. The good thing about Ray’s house was that it was basically kid-proof after they’d raised two boys in it from infancy, and Mikey frowned at the thought of baby-proofing his own place.

Ray nudged Mikey’s calf with his foot, and Mikey blinked at him.

“I think that you’re doing the right thing. It’s easy to convince yourself that staying together is the right thing to do because everyone says it is, but if you’re not happy, your kids won’t be happy either.”

Mikey blinked at him some more, letting the words sink in. He knew that Ray and Dawn were separated, and that Ray was still holding out hope that they’d figure out what was wrong and that they’d get back together, but he also got the feeling that Ray wasn’t doing it for himself. The advice didn’t really mesh with that, unless Ray was saying that he’d convinced himself, and in that case, Mikey was even more touched by Ray giving him the advice that he couldn’t take.

In the few seconds it took Mikey to process all of this, the kids had enough time to come back with cookies in hand. Hunter chose to sit on the other side of Mikey instead of on the floor where he’d been before, that basically signaled the end of the conversation. Pretty soon the commercials ended and Mikey excused himself, going to tell Gerard and Frank that he was heading home. He had to be careful, because whenever they were both missing from any given situation, it was possible that Mikey would walk in on them. They both thought they were so fucking sneaky, or at least Gerard did. Frank didn’t seem to care who knew what was happening so long as it wasn’t any of the kids. Luckily, he found both of them on the back porch, Gerard immediately stubbing out a cigarette in a way Mikey was sure he thought was stealthy enough to avoid Mikey’s attention. His brother really sucked at covert operations.

Later that night, Mikey found himself laying on his bed thinking of all the possible ways the baby situation could go terribly, horribly wrong. What if he and Melody stopped getting along and she tried to take full custody of the baby? He wasn’t actually sure that would be so bad, since Mikey had shit all knowledge of how to raise a baby. He could be a terrible father, for all he knew. Until he’d had a nephew to dote on he had barely even liked babies, and that had only been good because he could hand Hunter back to his parents when there was a diaper situation to take care of. He wouldn’t be able to do that when he had his own kid. He didn’t think that diapers were really enough of a reason not to have a kid, and maybe he should have thought of that before he accidentally got Melody pregnant.

He couldn’t sleep, and he wasn’t really supposed to be sleeping anyways. Sleeping at night on his off days just messed up his schedule for the rest of the week, and that made waking up and going to sleep on time more difficult. Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it to try and get a real job, something that didn’t involve working nights, but then he remembered how much he loved his gig, how much he loved the people who worked at his clubs. Sometimes the bands were shitty and every once in awhile there was a bar staff member who got an attitude with him, but Mikey was good at taking care of problems. He liked being involved whenever things went wrong and being there to fix them, to make sure that the events he promoted went off smoothly. He was incredibly good at his job, and he loved it, and it hadn’t actually affected his ability to be around his friends and family all that much, despite the fact that he slept while everyone else was at work and vice versa. He was lucky, and it was a good gig, and he wasn’t about to give it up just because his nights off were lonely.

He found himself opening up his laptop, navigating to some of the blogs he followed to see if maybe there was new content for him to go through, just to have something to occupy his time. A few months before Mikey had found Ray’s blog by accident — he’d been trying to see if it was worth getting a certain type of speaker for the entertainment system and he had searched for reviews of it. Lo and behold, there had been Ray, his wild hair and glasses recognizable even in the tiny preview image of his video. Mikey had forgotten all about the speaker system, losing an entire night off to watching the entire backlog of Ray’s videos. He remembered Ray mentioning it, maybe in passing, but he hadn’t realized that it was something he took seriously, or that he had such a following.

He made a profile, something anonymous without his name, picking out the username _miserablenow80_ because of The Smiths (and because it was true), and then subscribed. He already had an account on the site but something kept him from subscribing with that one — he didn’t want to make Ray feel weird that someone from his real life had found his blog, even if it was completely on accident.

Mikey had watched every video that Ray had put out since. He even left comments, sometimes disagreeing with Ray just for the fun of it and other times actually disagreeing with him. Ray was always so polite in his responses, and clever in a way that Mikey didn’t get to see in real life very often. It wasn’t that he wasn’t clever in conversation, it was just that he so often simply listened to everyone else go on about whatever they were discussing, happy to simply be included. Gerard and Frank both talked so much, and given the opportunity, the two of them would talk for hours and dominate the conversation like it was a sparring match and Mikey and Ray were just bystanders. It felt like that a lot, the two of them babbling on while Ray and Mikey exchanged meaningful looks when they weren’t paying attention.

But on Ray’s blog, he had the spotlight, and over the internet, he could carefully curate the perfect response. Mikey didn’t know that it was something Ray was capable of until that first reply to his comment. He hadn’t thought Ray was stupid, just not as clever with words as Mikey was, not as verbose as Gerard, or as sarcastic and quick as Frank. Sometimes he seemed downright oblivious, but it turned out that wasn’t the case at all. Ray was just as careful as Mikey was with words, and some of it probably had to do with the fact that he wasn’t super interested in any given topic that the rest of them might be discussing, but this was his thing. Technology was one of the things Ray loved the most and Mikey liked being involved in that passion somehow, even if he had to frequently look up specs for things that Ray rattled off like it was second nature.

He found himself commenting on every video that Ray put up, just so he could see his responses in action. Even if Ray didn’t know it was him, the fact that he was spending energy on him was comforting in a weird way.

The newest review was short, but Mikey watched it twice, just to take up more of his time. He liked the way that Ray spoke, careful and cautious, like he’d scripted out what he was going to say, but still he made it sound natural, somehow. He came across as personable, just like Mikey was having a conversation with him in real life, and that was something he knew not everyone could do. Ray’s voice was soothing too, and Mikey had realized at some point while watching that he didn’t hear enough of Ray just talking, but he was interested in hearing more of it. He wanted to take up more of Ray’s time, and he didn’t know why.

Ray was married and hoping to salvage that marriage, and Mikey had absolutely no business finding comfort in Ray’s voice, even when it was some review about a tech product Mikey had never even heard of. And yet, that was exactly what he’d started to do, what he was still doing. He’d even made a private playlist of his favorite videos, of ones where Ray looked particularly nice or where he smiled more than usual. When he finished watching the new video a second time, he clicked onto the playlist to waste more of his time. Listening to Ray wasn’t actually a waste of time, though he could definitely see how it might come off as creepy. There was a reason the playlist was private, and it wasn’t even because Mikey was secretive, though he kind of was.

Eventually, he forgot all about being upset about the baby, long enough to be able to fall asleep curled around his laptop with Ray’s voice playing through his headphones.

* * *

Ray knew that things weren’t exactly above board with the fact that he was talking to the person from his videos, not considering he was still married, still hoping to get back together with his wife. Still, he thought that it was probably fine. Nothing had happened, even if he was talking to the person more often than not. Most nights he was there, messaging them from his computer until it was time for Ray to go to bed. He thought that it was fine, probably, because they were friendly and funny and smart, and though he still didn’t know their name or where they were from, that didn’t really matter. They were just a friend.

It was mid-November when he finally got tired of not knowing. That morning, he’d picked the kids up from Dawn’s place and she’d looked distracted and in a hurry, which he didn’t understand. She wasn’t supposed to be working on a weekend, and yet, there she was, dressed up and looking like she was heading into the office. He didn’t think it was his place to ask what she was up to; that was part of the reason they had always fought. Dawn liked to give him shit for always wanting to know things even when they didn’t really affect him, which Ray thought was a bit unfair. He was a curious guy and for some reason, his wife, one of the people he was closest with in the world, one of the people he was supposed to know the best, had closed herself off to him. He could read people relatively well and yet she didn’t even give him that opportunity anymore. It was like she lived in secrecy and he wasn’t allowed anywhere near whatever she was holding dear. In actuality, he knew why; things hadn’t been the same between them since they had lost the baby, but he had expected things to get back to normal after they had Noah, and they hadn’t. Dawn had remained as disengaged from him as ever. He didn’t understand that at all, given his supposed role in her life, but he hoped that getting a bit of time away from each other would help repair that. Maybe she just needed some privacy, and didn’t feel like sharing every single thing with him. 

Unfortunately, it seemed like the problem had just gotten worse since they had separated. Dawn barely talked to him if it wasn’t about their kids or the house or something she absolutely had to. She had gotten her own bank account so that she could pay for the apartment she was renting and whatever else she wanted to spend her money on. A lot of her paycheck still went into their joint account, but not as much as it had, back before they were separated, and Ray tried to be understanding of that. It was difficult; he’d always run all of the money things, and he didn’t like that her extra money wasn’t going into their savings like they had always done. They had only had one conversation about it, though, and it had been determined that, one, Dawn needed a break if they wanted to save their marriage at all, and two, Ray’s opinion on her money was not requested or invited. 

He had gone out the night before to Mikey’s club, wanting to get out of the house on a Saturday night for once, and he’d taken a shower that morning just so his hair didn’t smell like cigarette smoke. He knew that Dawn would say something about how he’d supposedly quit, and how she didn’t think that his quitting counted if it was only around the kids. Ray rolled his eyes even thinking about it. He hadn’t even been the one smoking, he had just gone outside with Mikey when he had needed a smoke, keeping him company.

That was a weird situation, to be sure. He couldn’t imagine getting ready to have a child with someone that you weren’t together with anymore, but there Mikey was. The younger Way brother had seemed really down about the situation when he first found out, and for over a month after that. Ray had only known him during that time, so he had just figured that was his standard personality, except that he saw glimpses of the real Mikey when he forgot to be sad. He would laugh whenever Frank got rowdy with the kids or he would say something really funny out of nowhere that made Ray snort with laughter. The only person who seemed to get the real Mikey regularly was Gerard, and Ray figured that was because they were brothers. The two of them seemed to communicate in code, without even speaking, like they had a language of their own. 

It’d turned around a little bit, though, eventually. That had been another clue that Mikey wasn’t just depressed all the time, just by everything that was happening to him. He started smiling more and though it wasn’t a full-teeth affair like when Gerard smiled, or a fucking sunbeam smile like Frank’s, the little curve of his mouth in humor was enough. Ray liked seeing it, in any case, glad to see signs of happiness in Mikey that he wasn’t yet accustomed to. 

Dawn was in a hurry, and she barely glanced at him as she rushed around the living room of the apartment, simultaneously trying to get ready and make sure the boys didn’t forget anything. As she tucked a scarf around Noah’s neck, Ray noticed that she was wearing a new shade of lipstick, but he didn’t say anything about it. He was pretty sure that wasn’t his place either. 

“Did you guys do anything fun this weekend with Mom?” he asked the boys, trying to drag their attention away from their tablets. It was nearly impossible, and while he appreciated tech himself, sometimes he wondered if it was damaging his kids and their social skills beyond his comprehension. They seemed to do okay friend-wise at school though, so he mostly didn’t worry.

“We had pizza,” Logan said, not looking up from the video that he was watching over Noah’s shoulder. 

“Oh, yeah? What kind?”

Noah started to answer but was distracted by Dawn’s hand on his shoulder as she crouched down to kiss his cheek. 

“Come on, Mommy has to get to work. You can tell Daddy all about the pizza in the car, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ray frowned, looking up from the kiss mark Dawn had just left on Noah’s face, trying to rearrange his features before she saw. He didn’t like that she was hurrying them, her rushing went against his usual laid-back approach to moving through the world, but he knew that if Dawn saw, she’d find some way to chew him out, despite being in a rush. 

“Alright, my little dudes, let’s get in the car so your mommy won’t be late.” 

Dawn kissed Logan’s cheek, too, and then stood and leaned in to kiss Ray’s. It wasn’t until after she had pulled away that she seemed to hesitate, and Ray had to assume that she’d done it out of habit, like she was on autopilot. A kiss for each of her boys. She used to say that when they had tucked the kids in and she kissed them all on the cheek in quick succession. Her boys. Ray wasn’t sure how well he fit into that category anymore.

Ray managed to get the boys buckled in without any further incident, and he only asked about the pizza again after he’d pulled out of the parking space. After finding that they had eaten pepperoni and apparently lots of it —  _ three pieces _ , Noah had said, grinning at Ray in the rearview mirror — he asked them if they wanted soup and grilled cheese for lunch. It wasn’t a complete surprise that the majority of their life revolved around food. Ray’s mom, who had three boys including Ray’s older brothers, had complained often about how there was never food in the fridge, not that she hadn’t loved cooking for her family. Leftovers had disappeared almost faster than she could make them, if there was even anything left after dinner, and Ray could already see that becoming a similar theme in his own house. Noah and Logan were starting to grow, getting out of the stage where they were picky eaters and moving towards the one where they inhaled everything in sight. 

After the boys cheered in agreement to the lunch plan, Ray took a small detour for supplies. Going to the grocery store on a Sunday morning wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, but they managed to get in and out of the store without much of a problem. They did, however, walk out with a tub of cookie dough in addition to the soup and sandwich ingredients, but treats were okay once in awhile. Ray conveniently ignored that pizza was technically a treat, as well as the fact that the boys had eaten it twice in the last two days. 

After they got home, Ray let the boys settle down on the couch with their tablets after confirming that they had no unfinished homework due on Monday and no forms left unsigned. The Thanksgiving holiday was that week, so they would only be at school for three days, and it wouldn’t do to have them turn in late homework when there wasn’t really time to make it up. Noah’s homework, which mostly consisted of learning the alphabet and counting to low numbers, barely registered as homework, but Ray supposed it was more about building the habit of doing schoolwork outside of school than actually giving him much to learn outside of school. 

He busied himself checking the stats for his latest video, hoping without actually letting himself have the thought that  _ miserablenow80 _ had commented. He wasn’t disappointed, but before he could respond to it, Noah wandered into his office and started asking about lunch, and Ray immediately got up to focus on that. 

Ray made sure that the boys helped clean the table off before they sat down, but he had lunch ready to go within fifteen minutes. His grilled cheese sandwiches weren’t as good as his mom’s, but they were pretty close, and he was happy to see both of his boys chowing down like it was the most delicious food they’d ever eaten.

“So,” Ray said between bites, “How was Mommy’s?”

“Good,” Noah said, and Logan nodded, his own mouth full of food. 

“Just good? Was it just pizza? You guys were there for a whole day, it had to be more than just pizza.”

“It was,” Logan said after he finished chewing and swallowed. Ray appreciated the dedication to manners, but he didn’t want to interrupt since it seemed like it was actually going to be a conversation. “We played games, board games. Not the video ones, though those are more fun. Mommy doesn’t have video games at her apartment.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Ray grinned, knowing that they probably asked Dawn every weekend if they could bring over one of their handhelds, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want any video games of any kind at her place (though apparently she made an exception for the tablets). Back when they’d been living together, that had been a frequent argument; Ray loved technology and Dawn seemed to tolerate it at most. He didn’t like to think that she hated it just because he loved it, but the thought had crossed his mind a few times. 

“What board games did you play?”

“We played a lot,” Noah said, jumping into the conversation although he still had his sandwich gripped in his hand. As he started to count the games off on his fingers, he ended up setting the grilled cheese on his plate, which was adorable. “Candyland, which I won, Chutes and Ladders, which Mommy won.”

“Apples to Apples,” Logan interjected, as if he was afraid that Noah would forget. “Mark won that one.”

“Mark?” Ray frowned. He didn’t recognize the name at all. “Who is Mark?”

Both boys shrugged and looked each other. Ray didn’t like that at all.

“I dunno,” Logan said, taking the lead in a subject that the pair of them apparently thought needed to be handled with care. “Think he’s Mommy’s friend. We just met him.” 

“Oh.” Ray didn’t know what to do with that information, so he just went back to eating his soup. The boys barely noticed he was suddenly moody, which was good. He didn’t really like the fact that they were aware of any problems between their parents at all, and he really didn’t like that they were learning to be careful with what they said around him. They were supposed to be able to trust that they could come to him with anything, and he wasn’t at all comfortable with them censoring themselves. He would have to talk to them about it when he got over his current mood. 

Since it was Sunday night, their routine required baths before bed, although Logan was getting to the age where he liked showers better. Ray was happy to let him do that even though he always did a check to make sure his hair was rinsed completely before he got out. Both boys had his curly hair, though it was the same dirty blonde as Dawn’s, and only Logan liked keeping it long. Noah always wanted his cut short, which was easier to keep clean. 

After bathing came teeth brushing, and then the boys got into bed like they always did and watched an episode of a cartoon. That part only happened if they agreed on what to watch, that was the rule, and then Ray kissed them both good night. He still didn’t feel much better when he turned their light off, made sure their night light was on, and closed their bedroom door. The conversation he wanted to have with them wasn’t one he wanted to have at night anyways. Maybe he could fit it in the next morning on their way to school, or after he picked them up. That was probably the best plan, because he could take them out and treat them to ice cream as a bribe for having to have what could be a difficult conversation. 

His mind settled on that (and practically nothing else), Ray went to his own room, settling down on the bed he used to share with his wife. He wondered what it meant that she had a new friend, one that she brought around the kids but didn’t tell him about. It was odd that she’d choose to waste one of her days with the kids by having someone else there. She didn’t get very much time with them, not that she had before they’d separated either. Dawn worked so much, and the only reason the boys didn’t have to go to daycare was because Ray could work from home and had time to handle pickups and drop-offs. 

When they’d separated, that conversation had gone on for a long time, spanning over a few weeks. Dawn had wanted the boys to live with her, but there were a lot of reasons it wouldn’t work. She felt it was fair that she should be the one to move out, as the separation was largely her idea, and that made it difficult. The boys shared a room in the house, though there was room for them to split up whenever they got too big to share, but there wasn’t much of a point in Dawn having a two bedroom apartment when they had all of their stuff in the house. Additionally, Ray was the one who took the boys to and from school because Dawn’s job didn’t leave her time to before she had to be at the office. There was a chance she could’ve made arrangements, but she was up for a promotion and didn’t want to risk it by being difficult.

They’d been over the arguments for and against the boys going with Dawn again and again, so often that Ray could recite them from memory. The fact of the matter was that Ray took more care of watching them by a wide margin, and if they didn’t want to bounce the kids back and forth across town several times a day, it just made sense for them to stay at the house with Ray. Dawn got them from Saturday to Sunday morning and she took them out for dinner twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They were supposed to have family dinners at the house on Wednesday nights, but so far that hadn’t happened more than once or twice. Something at Dawn’s work always came up.

Nothing sat right with him about the fact that there was someone else in Dawn’s life, someone he didn’t know. His mind ran through the list of Mark’s he knew. There was Mark Sloan from high school, and Mark Brendanawicz, who’d coached Logan’s soccer team when he was five, and that guy that worked with Dawn, Mark something or other. None of them were friendly enough with Dawn to visit her apartment while her kids were there, and yet, someone had. 

Ray didn’t know what to do with himself. He was still holding out hope that his wife would change her mind about splitting up, that the separation would be enough of a breath of fresh air for her to want to come back. If everything went right, she would realize what she was missing and come back to him and they would be stronger than ever. He took a deep breath and pushed away the thought that Dawn might never change her mind. 

Ray paced around his bed for a little while, trying to wear himself out enough to be able to focus on something else, but all it accomplished was giving his mind free rein to run wild, and his thoughts kept coming back to her, to his wife with someone else. He didn’t like that his first instinct was to get back at her, to do the same thing. He didn’t even know for sure that there was anything happening. A suspicion was far from the truth.

He needed a distraction, something to occupy his mind so that he didn’t have to think about what Dawn and Mark might get up to together when the kids weren’t around. Ray hadn’t even thought about anyone else, not really, except that maybe he had. That person from his vlogs, the one he flirted with. He had no idea what they looked like or basically anything about them, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel attracted to their personality. That was what really mattered to him anyways. Dawn had drawn him in with her wit and her smile, and those had been aimed at him less and less over the years. Her wit had stayed around, but she only ever used it against him, and her smile was mostly reserved for their kids. It was fine. Kids were supposed to become the most important parts of their lives, but Ray almost felt like Dawn had used the opportunity to disconnect from him and then taken their lack of a connection as a reason to leave. 

He didn’t want to think about any of that. Pulling out his laptop, he set it on the bed and then went about changing out of his clothes into something more comfortable, ending up in a pair of dark sweats and a long-sleeve shirt. The season for sleeping in t-shirts was past, and he found himself turning the heater on most nights to keep them warm. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it would soon. 

Once he was changed, he climbed into bed and got comfortable, making sure to put a pillow across his lap before pulling his laptop onto it. Ray was pretty sure that the claims about laptop radiation and erectile dysfunction were bogus, but he didn’t like taking chances. He could always just look it up, but there was a potential for it to be true, and he would honestly rather not know. Better to take precautions and just hope that they were enough in the event that technology really was bad for him and his dick, not that he ever got to use it these days. He didn’t even care about the rumors about lower sperm count — those days were past by about four years, right after Noah was born. Dawn had insisted on a vasectomy and he’d gone along with it, happy that two kids was enough for her. All he’d cared about was her happiness and satisfaction, and that still hadn’t been enough. 

Shaking his head, he opened his laptop and navigated to his vlog in one window, opening an incognito window for what else he had planned. Honestly he should’ve just gone straight for the porn, but he couldn’t help himself. He was a little bit addicted to checking the stats on his videos, and he found himself going to the page out of habit, even when he didn’t really mean to.

At the top of the comments was the one from  _ miserablenow80 _ , which he’d completely forgotten about. He had meant to come back and answer it, but the revelation about Mark had distracted him. Reading the comment again, which of course did not agree with his review on his newest fuzz pedal, he started to type out a reply but then thought twice. Instead, he opened up the conversation they had started to have in private messages, and he sent them a message there. He hadn’t messaged them since that first time, but that had broken the seal. The fact that they had answered the first time gave him confidence that they might answer again this time. 

The message wasn’t invasive- He didn’t ask a ton of questions that might come across as too personal, but he did spend at least ten minutes overthinking it. He just wanted to get to know them better, to see if maybe there was a connection there. It was basic stuff, like where the person was from and how they knew so much about music, what instruments they played. There wasn’t a whole lot Ray knew about them, just that they watched his videos and tended to disagree with everything he had to say. He wasn’t sure he had ever met someone so argumentative before, and they hadn’t even discussed things that were really worth arguing about. Though he supposed it was nice that they were passionate about the same things he was. 

After he sent the message, he felt a little weird going back to the original purpose of opening his laptop, but he went about it lazily, not really searching for anything in particular. Since he’d split with Dawn earlier that summer, and because they weren’t really sharing finances anymore, he’d subscribed to a few sites. He felt really weird browsing free porn sites after he’d seen a blog post about how there really was no such thing, and he tried to pay for any content. Ray was really into the whole crowdfunding movement, and it kind of fit that he would opt into crowdfunded adult content, too. 

One of the sites had an entire section of videos with just men, and another one entirely featuring people who didn’t adhere to the gender binary, and Ray found himself kind of intrigued by both, though he’d never gone out of his way to click on either. Tonight, though, he felt like clicking on the videos featuring just men, so he did. He was tired of trying to do what was right or would affect other people the least, because it seemed like he was the only one who bothered. Dawn certainly didn’t consider how her actions would affect him, or if she did, she didn’t care. Somehow that possibility hurt more than the one where she didn’t even bother to consider it. 

As he clicked onto the ‘ _ gay men _ ’ category, he heard a noise from his laptop that he didn’t recognize, though it sounded vaguely like a message tone. After poking around through the various programs, he realized that he had left the browser window where he’d messaged miserablenow80 open, and the noise had been a notification of a reply.

Ray quickly closed the window where he had been browsing for something to watch, foregoing minimizing it even though he wasn’t sure he was completely done with it. His cheeks felt warm; even though no one had seen him and it would be impossible for the person to know what he had been doing, he still felt like he’d been caught. He would just have to go back to it later. 

Switching gears was easy since he hadn’t actually been in the middle of anything, but he was usually more careful than that. Once his skin had cooled, he felt comfortable reading the message. He was surprised to find that the person had actually answered with more than just a few words. There were full sentences, everything typed out, which wasn’t a huge shock. Ray couldn’t remember the person ever using internet slang even though every other comment on his videos was riddled with it. 

They were open with their answers, not avoidant, but they didn’t supply any information that Ray didn’t outright ask for. Apparently, they were also from New Jersey, which Ray might have found surprising if it didn’t feel like everything somehow led back to his home state. For a state that only held about point-zero-one percent of the planet’s population (Ray had done a few quick Google searches), there seemed to be a lot of people involved in online music technology circles that were from Jersey. He couldn't help but wonder if they'd met each other in real life, or maybe passed each other on the street. Even if the state held just a hundredth of a percent of the world's population, that was a lot of people, more people than Ray could have possibly have encountered. Even when he ruled out the people who were too young or too old to fit the demographic he figured the other person fit into, the chances were slim. That didn't mean it was impossible, but Ray had to assume that if the person had recognized him in either his videos or real life, they would have said something to him. 

None of the answers to his other questions gave Ray any more to work with as far as figuring out whether or not they could already know each other. The person wasn't in a band, though they played bass for fun, and they did admit that a solid seventy-five percent of their disagreement with Ray was based on internet research and other reviews. For some reason this was the most exciting revelation of all, even more than the fact that the person lived somewhere relatively close. Ray had known the difference in opinions had to be intentional. It was too consistent for it not to be. 

Not for him to read too much into it, but he was pretty sure that the person arguing regardless of their actual opinion meant one of two things. Either they were an internet troll (likely) or they were actually interested in Ray defending himself. With either thing, at least someone was interested enough in what he had to say that they were giving him more opportunities to say it.

He wrote back pretty quickly, hoping that maybe the other person was still online waiting for an answer for him. Maybe they were somewhere else in Jersey, looking at their own computer screen and hoping that he would reply. His thoughts decidedly stayed away from the truth of what he had actually been doing when he had received the message. In Ray’s second message of the night, he exclaimed over the fact that they both lived so close (that wasn’t news, Ray talked about living in Jersey all the time in his videos). He mentioned how small the universe was, and asked them what kind of a setup they had, since their collection apparently wasn’t actually as big as Ray’s. The tone was exciting, teasing, interested in a way that Ray hoped didn’t come off as creepy. He was just excited to be able to maybe have this connection with someone. 

After he sent the message, he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t pull up everything he’d been doing before, not when he was waiting for a reply, and he chewed at his lip. He could always read something, though he’d ruled that out earlier, sure it wouldn’t distract him enough. Yet, here he was, distracted, his mind a thousand miles away from Dawn and her decisions.

Setting his laptop aside, he reached for a magazine off the top of the small stack he kept on his bedside table. When he was done reading them, they always got moved into his office where he would order things out of them and then shelve them. The magazines were how he’d originally started the blog — he had always talked about how there should be some kind of reviewing system for all of the new tech coming out and advertised in the magazines. As a kid with little funding or a hobby musician, there wasn’t really a way to tell which things would deliver on what they were supposed to do and which ones fell short. A lot of the new stuff had to be specially ordered in small stores, and unless someone in the store had already ordered it, there was no way to know if it was worth it. 

Dawn had kind of been the one to suggest the video series, or at least was responsible for Ray thinking of it. She had walked past his office one day and asked him what in the world he kept buying the things for, because there was absolutely no way for him to use everything. He knew she had meant it in a way that was supposed to translate to ‘stop spending money on this junk,’ but it’d made Ray realize that he could solve both the review problem and the purpose problem with one stone. 

It had been two years since the vlog had started, and if anything, Ray had only started buying more things. He didn’t keep most of it and the stuff he got rid of he always gave to the local music stores as either a donation or sold it to them cheap. He was friends with some of the owners, and he made them promise that they would sell it to the kids who couldn’t otherwise afford some of the new tech. He remembered being that kid who always looked through the magazines and imagined what his perfect setup would be like if he had all the money in the world. If he had stumbled upon some of the stuff he had put into the local stores as a kid, it would have made his year. 

As soon as he settled into bed with the magazine, there was another noise from his computer, and this time he had left the browser window up intentionally. Instead of a message notification, this one was a friend request, and Ray stared at it for a moment before clicking accept. He knew he should probably be more careful, the internet was full of dangerous people and all that, but as far as he knew, his address wasn’t listed anywhere. Jersey was small but it wasn’t  _ that _ small, and it would be difficult to find him with a first name like Ray (he didn’t attach his last name to his vlog).

After he hit accept, he waited. He didn’t know why he hadn’t done it before, and he didn’t know why it felt like such a big deal now. An internet friend seemed like a pretty normal thing to have, and it pretty much didn’t mean anything that the person had added him. The only thing that it maybe meant was that Ray’s second message of the evening hadn’t scared them off enough to cease communication entirely, though it was only nine. There was still time.

Ray laughed to himself at that. Just because he’d been married for years and hadn’t actually gone out and tried to flirt with someone didn’t mean he didn’t know how to have a conversation with someone. He made friends all the time, pretty much everywhere he went. He was just a friendly guy. He could talk to this person without being offensive, no problem. 

The magazine sat forgotten on the bed next to him, his computer in his lap again as he waited for a reply from the other person. He was sure it was coming, he didn’t know why, but he was. When it came, it wasn’t in the form of a direct message, although it was a message directly to him. Ray could argue that it was even more direct than a direct message — the message popped up in a chat window at the corner of his screen. 

_ >> hey _

All it said was hey. Ray stared at it for a good thirty seconds, not knowing what to do. For all the internal fuss he’d just made about being able to know how to have a conversation with someone, here was a conversation right in front of him, the closest he could get to a real time conversation on the internet, and he was flailing. 

After taking a deep breath, he drummed his keys on the keyboard to get out what was left of his nerves, and then actually typed a response.

_ >> Hi there.  _

As soon as he pressed enter, he began to second-guess himself, which was ridiculous. How could he get a simple greeting wrong? It wasn’t a complicated message to compose, but the other person was already typing. 

_ >> why are you so interested in my setup? you looking for tips on how to finally make yours better? _

Ray laughed. He actually laughed out loud, and although he knew that was a thing that people said, he also knew that most of the time those people weren’t actually laughing. Ray laughed, though, he really did, and he felt like telling the person that he had laughed would seem derivative. Instead, he sent a message back, trying to match tone.

_ >> Actually I wanted to give you some pointers on where yours could be improved. _

He saw that the person was typing, and he couldn’t help but wish he knew what their name was so that he could stop thinking about them as their username, which he was pretty sure was a lyric from the Smiths, though he couldn’t be certain. He had tried abbreviating it like was sometimes done on internet forums, but then he ended up calling the person ‘miserable’ and that wasn’t much better, although it was shorter. 

_ >> that would be difficult, considering it’s already pretty good _

Ray smiled and typed out a response without managing to overthink it. 

_ >> Are you sure? Did you get your info from the internet or did you really actually try your tech yourself? _

Ray could practically hear the other person typing as fast as they could from wherever they were in Jersey. 

_ >> isn’t your entire video series made on the precedent that people will get their info from the internet, where your videos happen to be? _

_ >> You’re not wrong. _

_ >> so? what if that’s exactly what I did? _

_ >> Unless you built your kit on my recommendation, it doesn’t count. The entire rest of the internet is wrong, that’s just how it works. _

_ >> oh okay, your opinion is the only one that counts, got it _

Ray laughed again. He couldn’t help it.

_ >> Most of the time, no. My opinion on most things isn’t as well-researched as this, but I’ve been playing guitar for the last twenty years, and I’ve tried a lot of tech. I’m pretty sure I know my shit.  _

_ >> well thanks for the offer, but my gear is perfectly fine for what I need it for _

_ >> Which is playing, presumably? _

_ >> for fun, yeah _

Ray hesitated. He wanted to invite the person to come play with him sometime, but that would require revealing a location of some kind, and he still didn’t even know the person’s name. After a long moment of deliberation, he sighed, chickening out. 

_ >> Most music should be for fun, I think. That’s the whole point. _

He didn’t know what he was so afraid of. Internet predators didn’t prey on single dads who ran music tech blogs, and it wasn’t as if he had a lot of options as far as friends went. Ray had to take what he could get and apparently that was this person.

_ >> I would ask if you wanted to play together sometime but I don’t really make a habit of playing with people I don’t even know the names of. _

_ >> hahaha, that’s a good rule _

_ >> I thought so. You could always just tell me your name, though. That would fix that. _

Ray waited for an answer. So far the response time had been pretty quick, but after five minutes of nothing, he started to panic. 

_ >> You don’t have to tell me. That’s okay if you don’t. I’m sorry for asking. _

He didn’t even know if the person was still online. There was no way to tell, no dot to indicate activity, which was either an upsetting design flaw in the messaging system or a security preference that the other person had set. Either way, Ray was stuck waiting. 

He had just given up, had set his laptop aside, taken off his glasses, and gotten up to go brush his teeth so he could go to bed. The message sound stopped him in his tracks, and he turned back to the bed, moving towards it so that he could read the message. His glasses stayed folded on his bedside table, forgotten. 

_ >> it’s mikey _

It was hard for Ray to determine whether the ‘it’s’ was supposed to mean that their name was Mikey or that the person was Mikey. Either way, it was the same thing. How many people named Mikey could there be in Jersey? Weren’t most people with the name Michael just Michael or Mike for short? Ray was panicking, his head spinning, and he didn’t know what to do or how to respond. 

He didn’t even know that Mikey watched his videos. The fact that he was the person who had been at the edge of Ray’s thoughts for weeks, the same person who Ray had turned to for a distraction when he wanted to forget his estranged wife’s potential betrayal was bizarre. He didn’t know how to handle it, so like most things that confused him, he set it aside. Closing out of the browser window, he shut his laptop and put it away, setting the magazine back on top the stack on his bedside table before heading to the bathroom as planned. 

Ten at night was a little early for him to go to sleep, and there were still about ten minutes till the hour when he climbed into bed. He was kidding himself if he thought that he would be able to fall asleep. He didn’t think that was possible, not with the way that his brain was running at a thousand miles an hour.

He hadn’t ever looked at Mikey in that way, at least not intentionally. He thought back to everything he had said, how he’d almost flirted with the person, with Mikey. If Ray was being honest with himself, it had been more than almost. The thing that bothered him most wasn’t that Mikey hadn’t told Ray outright who he was, it was that it had taken so long for Ray to ask just for Mikey to tell him in the end anyways. Ray knew that he should have answered the message; it was kind of rude for him not to when Mikey was probably really nervous about telling him. 

He kept tossing and turning in bed, his phone plugged in and charging less than a foot away from his head. He could text Mikey, he could do that. They texted often enough for it to feel like a regular thing they did or could do. It was only weird in the current circumstance. Picking up his phone, he drafted a message saying that he wanted to talk to Mikey about the video thing the next time they hung out. Right before he sent it, he considered the fact that maybe it wasn’t even the same Mikey. Maybe he’d gotten it wrong, and it was possible that it was someone else entirely. 

In the end he didn’t do anything, but he didn’t sleep much either. He just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to empty his mind of everything that was keeping him awake. Dawn, Mikey, the separation, the kids. There was so much to stress over, and Ray had made avoiding stress the point of his entire life. He didn’t want to deal with any of it, not that he could do much of anything right now, and that was entirely the point of stress. It was worrying about something he couldn’t control or couldn’t take action to remedy in the moment. The only problem was that Ray could definitely take action as far as the Mikey thing was concerned. He could, and he should. Mikey had given his name, and it was up to Ray to either confirm that it was Mikey, his Mikey, or clarify that it wasn’t. 

He deliberated over taking action until the early morning hours, and in the end he decided that it was too late to make a decision. Mikey had probably already fallen asleep, and it would be for the best if Ray did the same. He slept, though it was fitful, and in the morning, he felt just as worried as he had the night before. Maybe he’d message Mikey sooner rather than later. It was only Monday, and he wasn’t set to see Mikey until Friday night at the dad get together, and he didn’t know if he could deal with the stress and uncertainty for the entire week. It was a problem for another time, however. He had to get his kids up and ready for school. 


	6. Chapter 6

Sometimes, in the dead of night, if Frank couldn’t sleep or when he woke up, he’d get up and check on each of his girls to make sure that they were safe and asleep. That never took long, and after he finished he’d sit in his room by himself and think about Nat. Frank blamed himself for everything that’d happened with her. He was certain that he always would, and while that wasn’t something that he was happy to live with, he was resigned to it. What he couldn’t live with was the realization that if he didn’t have the girls, if he didn’t keep himself present in the moment with them, he could see how Nat’s solution might seem like the only way was out. Frank knew that he would never do what she’d done, would never leave their girls alone like that, but he understood why she had. His pain and his guilt wore him down, especially at night, especially when he was alone. Frank hadn’t been able to sleep through the night since Nat had died, and nothing interested him. His guilt was a black hole in his chest that everything else disappeared into.

The only thing that kept him going was his girls.

One night he’d heard Gemma crying from his room and rushed to get her out of her crib. She’d been almost too old to sleep there, but he was reluctant to get her a new bed. He didn’t know what to do with the crib now that there would be no more baby Ieros — he supposed his mom would take it and keep it safe until his girls started having babies, though that was a long, long way off. Gemma had stopped crying as soon as he’d picked her up, and thankfully neither of the other two girls seemed to have woken up to the sound of her cries, so he’d left the room, soothing her.

He hadn’t been sure why she had woken. She hadn’t had a fever, and she hadn’t needed a diaper change. She’d drank the sippy cup of warm milk he made for her but hadn’t been all that interested in it, like she’d only drank it to calm herself down more. Frank had sat with her on the couch and she had eventually laid down in his lap and fell asleep.

He’d looked down at her, stroking her hair back from her face as she slept. When she was still, it was easy to see Nat’s features. All three of his girls looked like her, and he could see it the most when they were asleep. How many times had he watched Nat sleep? How many times over the course of their marriage had he taken in every feature of hers while she slept, her self-consciousness not interfering with his desire to admire her? He could distinctly remember doing it, his insomnia getting the best of him, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it. It had to have been around the time Gemma was born — that was the last time he’d felt in love with her.

Frank hadn’t realized he was crying until a tear fell onto his baby girl’s cheek, and he had gently wiped it away before it could wake her. He had tipped his head back, silently letting himself cry and wiping away his tears on his sleeve before they could fall. He’d made a lot of mistakes and let Nat down over and over again, but he couldn’t do that to his kids. He had to do better — he would do better. In that moment, he had sworn to himself and to Nat, wherever she was, that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

Frank must have fallen asleep there because he had woken up to the sound of Olly jumping down the stairs, asking if he would make french toast for breakfast. She hadn’t been wearing her pajamas, and it wasn’t until Frank had asked her why she was all dressed up that she’d realized it was Sunday and not a school day. As he had gathered Gemma up and gone to put her back in her crib, Olly had sadly sat on the floor of the kitchen and took off her shoes (which was probably for the best considering that they hadn’t matched her outfit or each other, and they had both been left shoes to boot).

Frank knew it wasn’t enough to keep coasting through life like he just had to survive, like it didn’t matter what he did so long as he was there. His girls needed him to be there, to raise them into the incredible people they could be. They needed him to do more than just get by. Frank had known he needed to stop living in his depression and start living in the real world, because it wasn’t okay that Izzy felt alone and that Olly didn’t know which day of the week it was, and it wasn’t okay that Gemma had nearly stopped talking despite all the words she could say before her mom had left.

So he’d tried harder. He had tried to interact more with his kids, to go out of his way to do things that would make their days special instead of just helping them get through. He decided to try and have at least one genuine moment with each of his girls every single day, even if it meant that he had to work less. He had made an arrangement with his boss to move to part time, one less day a week. He found that working less and being more present in the moment made him feel more creative. For the first time in months, he picked up a guitar and actually felt like writing something instead of just playing things he already knew. When he stayed home every Friday, he ended up writing music while Gemma slept.

Gerard gave him more of that feeling, so of course he chased it. He made Frank feel alive and more like himself, and he didn’t even think Gerard tried. He just went through life being unapologetically himself and that was something Frank yearned for so badly. It drew him to Gerard in a way that he didn’t understand. It wasn’t just about chemistry, or attraction, though Frank was certainly attracted to him. Gerard was an incredible human and an artist, this free spirit who seemed to make everything around him magical just by existing, and that was something Frank wanted more of in his life.

He thought he’d been magic once. Maybe back in high school, before the world tore him down for getting Nat pregnant, before it told him that he’d irrevocably fucked up. Maybe even after that, when the band took off, though those two things had happened so close together that they were intertwined for him.

The plan had worked for awhile, but then everything went to shit the week after they missed out on the club meeting at the Toros’ place. It’d actually started as a really good day. Frank had been able to breathe through his nose for the first time in almost a week, which was a blessing he never appreciated until he got sick. The girls had gotten up on time and gotten ready for school without much fuss, and the whole family had made it where they needed to go without a single person being late. Izzy told him she loved him when she got out of the car a block away from her school, which was rare and precious these days when it seemed like she hated him at least once daily. Gemma hadn’t cried when he’d dropped her off at his mom’s, and he had made it to work early enough to stop and get a coffee and a breakfast pastry from the little cafe cart in the lobby. His boss had approved his upcoming vacation days, and for once, there had been nothing missing from the shipment of office supplies. He’d had to stay late to keep the office open for someone to come and repair something in the bathroom, but it hadn’t taken too long. When he went to pick up the girls, Izzy and Olly had finished their homework and they had all eaten dinner. Frank’s mom had packed him a to go container with his own serving of eggplant parmigiana (which happened to be his favorite thing she made, like ever) and there had even been an extra container for his lunch the next day.

It was a good day, one of the few he’d had in a long time that was truly, truly good, and he found himself smiling and laughing along with the girls as they all sat down to watch a movie together.

It wasn’t until they paused for a bathroom break, Izzy went up to her room to change into pajamas, and she started screaming her head off that Frank remembered that there was no such thing as a good day for him, not anymore. Not since he had split with Nat.

His first thought was that she was hurt. He raced up the stairs to get to her, and she met him at the top. Her face was bright red, her eyes full of fire and so much rage. He hadn’t even known it was possible for her to be that angry, but he had a feeling he was about to learn. Frank could feel the anger rolling off of her in waves, and even though he was standing on the stairs, he almost took a step back, like he was trying to get out of the blast zone.

“Iz, what’s wrong?” His words were cautious, every bit of his tone tuned to try and make sure she understood that he was there to help and not make anything worse, whatever the situation might be.

“Someone took Mom’s sweatshirt.” Frank frowned in confusion as he tried to figure out what she’d said, and then it dawned on him. Nat’s favorite sweatshirt. It was a ratty old hoodie from the early days of Ghosted Glory with the band logo half-worn off and a hole in the sleeve that Nat had carefully sewn shut. When it had been time to go through Nat’s things, Frank had looked for it everywhere, wanting to keep it for his own selfish reasons. He had always loved that she had worn it so much, like it was somehow a measure of success that his own wife had worn his band merchandise.

“I’m sure it didn’t go far, Iz.” Frank was trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice, the shock and surprise and the hurt? Was that hurt? Izzy had taken it when he had wanted it, and it felt wrong to be jealous of his kid, but he was. Natalie’s favorite sweatshirt had meant so much, to her and to Frank, because it was his, and that was why she had loved it. It meant something to Frank, but apparently it had meant just as much to Izzy.

Frank had to admit that it made all the sense in the world that Izzy had taken it before he could get to it, that she had been keeping it hidden all this time. Izzy had grown up seeing her mom in that sweatshirt all the time. She probably had so many memories of Nat wearing the sweatshirt that it was right that she have it and not Frank.

Except now, she didn’t have it. That much was obvious by the anger radiating off of Izzy as she turned to look to the living room.

Frank followed her gaze down to his two youngest daughters who were sitting on the couch again. He could see right away from the expression on Olly’s face that she was the one who’d taken it. Her face was blank, her guilt clear. She had always been a terrible liar.

It was apparently just as obvious to Izzy, for she immediately moved to storm down the stairs to do something that Frank definitely did not condone. He had stopped a few steps below the top of the stairs, and he caught her by her shoulders on her way down, stopping her in place to keep her from murdering her little sister.

“Hey. Izzy, I will deal with this.”

“But Dad —"

“I said,” he repeated, with an emphasis on the word ‘said’ to encourage her to pay attention to his words, “I will deal with it.” Izzy moved back up the stairs, still fuming, and Frank wondered how she’d ended up with his temper when he was definitely still in possession of it himself.

He watched Izzy’s face grow even cloudier as she turned back to him at the top of the stairs. Frank had no idea what was going to come out of her mouth but he was absolutely certain that it would sting in the worst way. He could feel the venom in it before she even opened her mouth.

“I wish you had died instead of Mom.”

Frank felt his heart sink. It was something he’d thought in his darkest moments of guilt. He knew that such thoughts weren’t healthy, that they would only make him feel worse about the situation, but that was entirely what he deserved after the role he had played in his ex-wife’s unhappiness. Nat had practically raised the girls on her own for years, and they’d all been well-behaved, near-perfect, pleasant, and intelligent children. It was only when Frank had been left as the sole parent that things had unraveled.

The part of him that knew this was also the part of him that was loathe to let anyone else see the darkness, and yet he found his anger rearing up within him even. If he opened his mouth, he feared he might irreparably damage his relationship with his eldest daughter, shattering what was left of their tenuous connection as a family, but he couldn’t keep his anger contained.

“Isabella Rose, you do not get to take your pain out on everyone else.” Usually when he was angry, his voice made that clear, but now it was low, even, almost scarily cold. It made him feel like a hollow shell of the loving father he considered himself to be, full to the brim with his own brand of chilled venom. “We all lost her. We all miss her. I’m sorry you think I’m such a horrible parent, but I’m the only one you have left.”

In the moments since she had spoken, Izzy’s expression shifted through so many emotions that it was impossible to read exactly what she was feeling before she moved onto the next. When Frank paused, he watched her features finally settle into sadness. It was the most she had ever looked like Natalie. He kept hurting the people he loved over and over, causing Nat so much pain over the years that he recognized the same pain on his kid’s face. It broke his heart even more that he apparently couldn’t stop, that even after he had failed his ex-wife in the worst possible way, he’d continued on to fail their children when they had already suffered more than anyone should have to.

Before she could speak again, Frank beat her to it.

“Go to your room, Izzy. I don’t even want to look at you.”

He watched Izzy’s tears start to fall and she spun on her heels, running to the room she shared with her two sisters and slamming the door shut. Closing his eyes, he blinked back his own tears and took a deep breath and then another for good measure, trying to calm himself. He knew it was his fault, all of it, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Giving into the guilt wouldn’t help anyone. It wouldn’t keep food on the table or a roof over their heads. It wouldn’t make Izzy not hate him, and it wouldn’t help any of his girls grow up into the happy and healthy human beings he had always wanted them to become. He had no idea where to turn, so he sighed and walked back downstairs to a terrified Gemma and a softly sobbing Olly.

That night, when he carried the youngest two upstairs, Izzy was already curled up in her bed, facing the wall. He wasn’t sure if she was asleep or not, but after he tucked the other girls into bed, he leaned over and saw that her breathing was deep and even. She must have just fallen asleep, because he could still see tear tracks on her cheeks. Before Frank had taken them up to bed, Olly had tearily confessed that she’d hidden the sweatshirt at the bottom of her pajama drawer. Frank pulled it out quietly then, tucking it around Izzy like it was hugging her.

He sat by himself in the living room for a long time, not knowing what to do. His thoughts were full of Natalie, how her last moments might have gone. He wondered if she had done it on purpose, or if the pain had just been so great she had stopped caring about dosages and started taking more pills each time it hurt, eventually taking so much she just never woke up again. He wondered if there was any way that he could have stopped her.

Even though he’d had his own struggles with self-hatred, Frank had never once considered ending his life. He certainly hadn’t liked himself very much since the band had broken up, but things had gotten easier since the move back to Jersey. He was doing better, but nights like this, nights where he felt alone and dark and hopeless, he wasn’t so sure that there actually was a better. Maybe ‘better’ was just the ability to fool himself into thinking that he wasn’t doing as bad as before.

His mom had told him to find someone he could talk to in the darkest moments, someone he could reach out to when he felt like things were hopeless. Even though he knew that he could turn to her for everything, there were some things he just wouldn’t discuss with his mom, and she had said that was fine. Frank hadn’t taken her seriously about finding someone, not thinking he needed to. He had figured that surrounding himself with people like Ray and the Way brothers was enough support, and he didn’t need to be particularly close with any of them.

But the awful truth was that Frank was lonely. He had been such a socially-starved teenager, a loner, the small sick kid who got picked on because he was absent too much to make many friends. Until he’d gotten a taste of it with the band, he hadn’t known what he was missing. In his bandmates, he’d found friends that were supposed to be his for life. They had all spent so much time together that it was supposed to be the ultimate friendship, an unbreakable bond, the end-all-be-all of friendship, and then Frank had ruined that too.

When he laid it all out like that, the pattern was clear; he was determined to sabotage his own relationships, and he didn’t even know why. It was quite possible that he just hated himself that much, that he didn’t even think he deserved something as simple and life-affirming as friendship, but he didn’t know why that would be the case. He didn’t feel the same self-hatred that he once had. Now it was deeper, tied to Natalie’s death, centered around a massive mistake he had made and not around his self-worth. Frank couldn’t hate himself, not when his girls held him in such high regard, not when they depended on him to show them how to live. He couldn’t be model self-love and self-respect if he was constantly bashing himself, but nights like tonight made avoiding that feeling nearly impossible.

It was like all of the dark thoughts he’d ever had over the past ten or so years of his life were rushing back to him, all at once. He tipped his head back on the couch and tried to breathe, tried to push them away, but he felt largely unsuccessful. Frank knew he couldn’t sit on his couch by himself and think all those thoughts. It was a dark spiral that‘d only get worse if he let it get going. He pulled out his phone and called the one person he knew would be awake no matter what time it was — he didn’t even bother to check.

Within the hour, Gerard knocked on his front door, a bundled up and half-asleep Hunter in his arms. Frank watched as he tucked Hunter in on the couch, and then they headed to the kitchen. When Frank had called, Gerard hadn’t even asked for an explanation, he had just said he would be there as soon as he could, and then he had shown up. Frank didn’t understand that kind of kindness, but he wasn’t in a position to question it. He didn’t know how to start explaining so he didn’t try, he just watched Gerard take the kettle from the stove and fill it at the sink, starting the burner on low. Boiling water wasn’t a difficult task, but Frank knew from movie nights that Hunter didn’t like hot cocoa, so it wasn’t like Gerard did it a lot. Yet, it was extremely clear from Gerard’s movements with the kettle that it was something he was well-practiced at, and Frank couldn’t understand why.

“You boil water a lot?” It was a weird thing to say, but the silence was driving him up the wall and he was already having a difficult time not bursting out of his skin. Gerard turned to him enough that Frank could see his profile and gave a soft smile.

“I used to make tea for Darcy a lot when she was too sick to hold anything else down. It calmed her stomach and made her feel a little better, I think. Honestly, I swear I’ll never be able to stomach the smell of peppermint tea ever again.”

The way he said it was so matter of fact that Frank felt a bit taken aback. Darcy’s death didn’t seem to be a sad thing for Gerard, it was just part of his life. Frank had never asked questions, but the little bit he had picked up in passing from conversations was that Hunter’s mom had been sick for a long time, pretty much exactly the opposite of Nat. He supposed that his ex-wife had been sick for a long time too, he just hadn’t known it. There must have been signs that her depression was more than just sadness, but Frank had missed them.

“Do you…” He hesitated, not sure where to even start the conversation. Frank had never been forthcoming with details about Nat, which had been on purpose. The entire point of moving back to Jersey was to start over, to let his girls have the peaceful life they deserved, and he didn’t think there was a point to that if the grief and the pity followed them all the way from Los Angeles. He hadn’t wanted everyone to ask what had happened, so he simply referred to Nat as his ex-wife and let everyone draw their own conclusions. Of course the girls were free to talk about it if they wanted to, except that Izzy had the same mindset as her dad about the whole pity situation. Olly generally refused to talk about her mom’s death, seeing as it’d been extremely traumatizing for her, and Frank wasn’t even sure Gemma could comprehend what had happened because she was so young.

Gerard watched him, hesitating, waiting for Frank to continue with his question. He didn’t look impatient, he just looked like he was holding his breath, static in the moment until Frank restarted it by speaking again. Frank wasn’t surprised that Gerard wasn’t in a hurry for him to continue. He had noticed from getting to know Gerard over the last few months that he was infinitely patient. It was like Gerard possessed all of the patience Frank had lacked for his entire life.

Frank started a few more times only to stop again, his courage failing him. He and Gerard had this incredible and terrible thing in common, and Gerard didn’t even know. It hadn’t been meant to be a secret, but now it had gone untold for so long that it was one, and Frank didn’t know how to make it known without it being some big reveal. His marriage to Nat hadn’t been a secret while he was famous, and he was sure that if people looked, they could find out what had happened. Ray probably knew; he had recognized Frank that first day at school, and Frank knew that Nat’s death had made the news. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility even though Ray had never brought it up. Other than that, Frank was relatively anonymous in Jersey, just a dad raising his kids.

Frank took another deep breath, shaking off the thought of who may or may not already know. The only thing that mattered was that Gerard deserved to know, and he didn’t.

“I wanted to tell you –”

The kettle started to screech, cutting Frank off and taking Gerard’s focus as he shifted back towards the stove to turn the burner off. Frank had assumed that Gerard would face him again after removing the kettle from the burner, but he turned to the cabinet with all the tea instead. It stretched Frank’s already thin patience, and he moved closer so that he could tug at Gerard’s sleeve to get his attention.

“I don’t _want_ tea. Gerard, can you just…”

Gerard turned to look at him and there was something kind in his expression that made Frank crack, completely. Before he could stop himself, the emotions he’d been holding back washed over him, his eyes welling up.

“Hey, what… Frank.”

Gerard quickly realized how emotional Frank was, wrapping his arms around the smaller man before Frank could even really start to cry.

That didn’t stop him from crying though. Little sniffles turned into weeping turned into big ugly sobs, and Frank was grateful that Gerard held him through it. Once he started, it was hard to stop, and he clung to Gerard and cried for longer than he could even keep track of. By the time his tears started to slow, his knees were aching from standing on the tile for so long, but he still wasn’t ready to let go.

He could feel Gerard’s hand rubbing up and down his back, and he inhaled deeply, his exhale shaky. Gerard seemed to sense the shift because his hold loosened just a little bit as he leaned back to speak to Frank.

“It’s okay. We won’t make tea. No problem.”

Frank gave a small laugh and then sniffed.

“It’s not about the tea.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“I’m just so fucking tired, Gerard.”

“I know, Frankie.” Gerard’s tone was tender, and all Frank wanted was to curl up in it. He realized then that there was literally nothing stopping him from doing just that, so he pulled away from the hug. Grabbing Gerard by the wrist with one hand, he wiped at his face with the other and started backing out of the kitchen.

“I want to lay down.”

“Okay.”

“With you.”

“Okay.”

There were no more words, just Frank and Gerard heading silently up the stairs to Frank’s bedroom and laying down in his bed. Frank didn’t even hesitate before he wrapped himself around Gerard. He was still tired, but at least he wasn’t alone.

* * *

“Gerard?”

Before Frank spoke, Gerard had been falling asleep. At first they’d been wrapped up together, but they had eventually shifted apart. Gerard ended up curled on the side of the bed he always slept on at home, only his bed was tiny. There was actually room for two people on Frank’s bed, and Gerard wondered sleepily what he would do with all of the extra space if he had a bed that big to sleep in every night. He would probably get a cat or something, only he was allergic to cats, so maybe a dog. Something warm to sleep at his feet. He started to drowse off again as he considered that, as he tried to figure out what exactly he would do with a bigger bed if only he had one, and then Frank repeated his name again and he realized he hadn’t responded.

“Hmm?”

“I was asking if you were awake.” There was a little bit of laughter in his voice and that made Gerard smile back at him in the dark. Frank didn’t spend all that much time laughing, though it was happening more frequently lately. Gerard liked to think that his brother and Ray and him had had something to do with that.

“The answer,” Frank continued, “is obviously not.”

“Hey, the answer is kind of, and also be nice to me. I haven’t slept, and I blame you.” Frank giggled at this, his mind obviously in the gutter even though they hadn’t done anything. The reason Gerard hadn’t slept was because he’d driven across town the moment Frank had asked him to, and aside from the crying and the cuddling, nothing physical had even happened. Gerard managed to keep a straight face for a moment before giggling himself. They must have made a ridiculous picture there, huddled together in the dark of Frank’s bedroom, two grown men giggling like they were twelve-year-olds. Gerard kind of liked it, though, could maybe get used to it. The big bed, the giggling, the sleeping with Frank. He shook his head to clear the thought away.

“Were you bullying me for a reason?” Gerard asked, his hand reaching out to find Frank’s, fingers brushing over the inside of his wrist. He heard Frank suck in a sharp breath in response to the touch, which he made a mental note to remember. It was funny how sensitive Frank was given all of the ink he was covered in. If he was that sensitive to touch, tattoos must be hell, Gerard had to guess. He’d never gotten one, and he never would, his fear of needles scaring him off despite how much he liked the aesthetic. Maybe that was what drove Frank to the tattoos, though, the pain, and Gerard had to admit that it wouldn’t be completely out of the picture for the constantly ongoing puzzle that was Frank.

“I wasn’t fucking bullying you, I was trying to have a conversation.”

“It’s fine. You can bully me if you want, though I know that’s not usually your preferred role.” It took no time at all for the innuendo of Gerard’s words to sink in and Frank swatted at his side.

“Ow, asshole.”

“Fucker.”

“Dickhead.” Frank snorted in response, and Gerard grinned, proud of himself for making Frank laugh in any form. “Seriously, though, what were we talking about?”

“Nothing, nevermind.”

“Oh, come on. Is it the thing you were trying to tell me earlier?”

Frank stilled in front of him. He hadn’t really been moving a lot before, but Gerard could barely hear him breathing now, like maybe he was holding his breath. Whatever Frank wanted to talk about was big, and Gerard wanted to take his question back. They didn’t actually have to talk about what had made Frank break down in the kitchen earlier, even if Gerard was curious. He could handle being curious, but he wasn’t sure he could handle Frank looking that sad all over again. Before he could voice the thought, Gerard heard Frank resume breathing and his arm shifted, his hand aligning with Gerard’s so that they could twine their fingers together.

“Natalie isn’t my ex-wife.”

It wasn’t that Gerard didn’t understand what Frank had said — he did. All of the words made sense, he just didn’t understand which part of the sentence the negative applied to. He didn’t know if Natalie wasn’t Frank’s ex but someone else, or if she wasn’t his ex because he was still married to her, or if she was someone else’s ex altogether. Frank’s emphasis hadn’t made it clear, and Gerard had to blame whatever part of the Americanized version of the English language was responsible for the ambiguity. Gerard had once taken a semantics class in college and it’d forever fucked up his perception of English, and his brain had started to rely on it when something was being said that he wasn’t ready or didn’t want to process.

He didn’t know how to ask Frank what he meant, but he trusted his silence to communicate his confusion. Gerard wanted to know what he meant. He wanted that very badly, actually, but he was afraid to ask, afraid to know the answer, afraid to know why Frank had kept it a secret for so long only to reveal it now. Gerard was afraid of what that meant for him.

Apparently Frank grew sick of the silence because he squeezed Gerard’s hand, requesting a response, and Gerard stopped chewing on his lip long enough to give him an answer in the form of his own question.

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean that she’s not my ex, not really.” They were close enough on the bed that Gerard could feel Frank shaking his head even though he couldn’t really see it in the dark. “We were separated, and I was so fucking pissed off at her for doing what she did that I just started calling her my ex to have more distance from her even though she was literally as far away from me as she could be.”

“What did she do?”

Frank sighed, a deep heavy sigh, and Gerard figured that he’d asked the right question if not exactly the easiest one to answer.

“She killed herself.”

Gerard must have subconsciously figured it out earlier because it didn’t shock him, it just helped bring other pieces of the Iero family story into better focus. He found himself clutching at Frank’s hand in comfort, but staying quiet so Frank could continue.

“They said she took too many sleeping pills and then didn’t wake up. I don’t know if she did it on purpose, or whatever, but I can’t see how it would have happened on accident. Olly was the one who found her.”

Gerard could hear something in Frank’s voice that was like pain but colder, more restrained, more practiced. Frank had dealt with this feeling by himself for a long time, and Gerard could tell that it was an incredibly big thing for him to share. He would’ve been touched had he not started to consider the incredibly upsetting set of realizations that came along with the knowledge that Frank’s ex-wife was Frank’s deceased wife.

That meant that the girls had been without a mother since whenever she had died. It meant that the entire family had held onto the loss all by themselves. It meant that Frank had been harboring all of the stress of not knowing whether he could do it all by himself, and it meant that he and Gerard were more similar than Gerard had even understood.

Gerard untangled his fingers from Frank’s so that he could trace his fingers over his cheek. He found wetness there and realized that Frank was crying, again, which was fine because he was crying, too. 

He didn’t know how long they laid there holding onto each other and crying because the darkness made everything endless. His heart ached for Frank; he’d harbored the truth on his own for so long. Gerard had heard the way that Frank had spoken about Natalie, the complicated emotion in his voice whenever she came up in conversation. Gerard hadn’t understood and had just written it off as something complicated from their divorce. Now that he knew the truth, he felt worse that he hadn’t somehow caught on, even though he knew that Frank wouldn’t have told him until he trusted him, and that trust had been hard-won and long-battled for.

Gerard stopped crying first, and he waited for Frank to quiet down again before he kissed him. He wasn’t surprised to find Frank ready and willing to kiss him back, and what originally started as pretty chaste deepened into something else pretty quickly. As Gerard rolled over to lean over Frank, he heard his phone go off from where he’d left it on the bedside table.

The only person who could possibly be calling him that late was Mikey, and he wouldn’t call unless he needed Gerard. He sat up as quickly as he could, taking his weight off of Frank as he reached for his phone. Gerard didn’t even bother checking the caller ID to confirm it was his brother, he just answered it.

“Mikey? What’s wrong? What happened?”

For a long, long moment, there was nothing but a quiet burst of static. Gerard had enough time to glance at Frank, who looked just as concerned as he felt. He pulled his phone away from his face to make sure he had actually answered it, and when he put it back to his ear, Mikey’s voice finally came.

“Gee? Can you come? I can’t –”

“Where? Where are you?”

“The hospital.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. _I’m_ fine. But Melody…”

Gerard felt his stomach sink before Mikey even finished the sentence.

“Gee. She lost the baby.”

“I’ll be right there.”

* * *

Mikey knew that he didn’t get to have a say. It’d only been his kid because of genes, and he hadn’t been excited about it, especially not at first. It just made sense that he didn’t get to be upset about losing the baby either. He knew that somehow, this was the universe giving back to him the negative energy that he’d put out, some stray thought had come back to bite him in the ass.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been excited, it was just incredibly horrible timing. He hadn’t regretted his decision to break up with Melody once since, even though he did find himself wondering if he could somehow make it work with her, for the sake of their kid. But he reasons that he’d broke up with her hadn’t changed, not even with the baby. They still weren’t in love, they still weren’t terribly compatible, and the answer at the end was no, he couldn’t make it work.

If it made a difference, it didn’t seem that Melody was all that interested in making it work either. While she hadn’t been thrilled at the beginning, she’d definitely been excited about the baby. She had immediately started buying clothes for them, showing Mikey everything because the baby mattered to her. The two of them had agreed to be friends and she had never so much as batted an eye in his direction since. The two of them weren’t in love, and they’d barely counted as a couple, not familiar with each other enough to accidentally fall into it again, but she had shared every part with Mikey, texting him and keeping him updated about each discovery she had, and he actually found himself getting excited about the idea too. That’s what made the entire thing suck so badly.

Mikey was trying not to wallow though — it wasn’t fair of him, not when the kid hadn’t been a part of him, not yet. He had seen Gerard go through the beginning of fatherhood, and had read it in one of the parenting books. He knew that the biggest changes for him would come after the baby was born. But now he would never see that, and he didn’t have a right to be upset about it. He didn’t have a right to take away from Melody’s pain by having his own, and he didn’t even get to be a part of hers. No one cared about what the dad-to-be felt, it was all about the mom, the mom who would have been, and that was fair. She was the one who had already had something and lost it. Mikey hadn’t even had anything yet other than some preconceived notions about what it might be like to have a kid of his own, a kid he hadn’t planned for or even thought he wanted. But he had come to want it, and he knew that it didn’t matter anymore.

Mikey did his best to go through his week without revealing his suffering to anyone. He was actually trying to avoid thinking of the word suffering in relation to himself at all, because it seemed dramatic and unnecessary and definitely didn’t apply to him or his situation unless he was talking about Melody, which he was also trying not to do.

Since the hospital, Gerard had been looking at Mikey like he was going to break apart at any moment, a fact he ignored as much as he could. He’d gone to work every night since he’d gotten the call, and he showed up to their Friday night get together, just like always. He tried not to seem closed off as he walked in, not wanting to give Ray or Frank a reason to worry. Mikey knew that, despite asking Gerard not to make a big deal about it, he had of course told them, because he was Gerard and he had never kept a secret in his entire fucking life. It wasn’t even a secret, it just wasn’t a big deal, and it didn’t need to be discussed.

He supposed that Gerard had probably told them so they wouldn’t ask how Melody and the baby were doing. They usually did. They were the ones who’d been through this the most, after all. Mikey had learned all he needed to know by asking questions, mostly to Ray because Ray gave him straightforward answers without being an asshole. Not being an asshole seemed kind of impossible for Frank to do because he was an asshole, and did everything in an assholish way. Mikey usually forgave him for the assholery because it was usually being aimed at other people and usually fucking hilarious, but he wasn’t about to call Frank’s asshole attention to himself. He wasn’t an idiot.

Yet, he couldn’t ignore the fact that the very first person to come up to him and hug him was Frank. Gerard had been pretty hands off, probably because he didn’t want to be the cause of Mikey’s pain. Even though Mikey was already feeling it (though he continued to maintain that he was fine, he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone), getting a hug would make it break and Mikey knew that Gerard had no interest in being the reason his brother finally broke down.

Frank apparently had no such qualms. He stood up the moment he saw Mikey and crossed the room to wrap what felt like every single one of his limbs around Mikey, somehow completely engulfing him even though he was at least half a head shorter than Mikey. He shrugged Frank off, so of course Frank punched him in the arm and muttered something about Mikey that had a lot of curse words in it. The punch didn’t really hurt, so Mikey knew it was out of love.

He only glanced at Ray, not wanting to see whatever was on his face. Mikey remembered the confession he’d made about the videos, and he remembered the way Ray had simply left him unanswered. He hadn’t forgotten, it’d just gotten lost in the midst of the rest of his life imploding around him.

The doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the pizza, and the energy in the room mostly went back to normal, at least for everyone else. It didn’t shift for Mikey. He remained lost in thought, staring at Gemma every time she ran into the room screeching for Frank and ignoring the way the sight of her made his chest ache.

The entire situation made him feel like he was moving through life slowly, unable to keep up with everyone else. He’d seen a crime movie like that once, where the crime boss had commanded his lackeys to get rid of someone and they’d dumped him in the water, tying cement blocks to his body to weigh it down. It felt a lot like that. It was an image that Mikey couldn’t get out of his head, and he’d even had a nightmare about it, which was weird, because he was pretty sure nightmares had always been Gerard’s territory. And yet, his mind had supplied him with a perfectly terrifying dream about being taken down by a mob led by a baby, by his and Melody’s baby, and he had woken up in a panic only to refuse to go to sleep again.

He wandered into the kitchen, looking for another beer or something to eat or an excuse to be by himself for a moment. When Ray found him, he’d been standing there leaning against the counter and staring at the floor for quite a long time. Ray didn’t say anything, just leaned against the island across from Mikey, but he stayed quiet. Ray was good like that, and Mikey appreciated it. Mostly he appreciated that his silence didn’t feel like Gerard’s, because Gerard’s silence felt like he was actively not talking about something, whereas Ray’s silence felt comfortable, like he was just existing in the same space as Mikey and not waiting for him to break down or anything.

Of course, that was exactly what happened. Mikey took a breath, just breathing, just like he was any other person, someone else who hadn’t lost a baby just three days before, a baby he hadn’t even wanted, and then he couldn’t breathe at all. It wasn’t until he felt arms wrap around him that he realized Ray had crossed few feet of floor between them, and it wasn’t until he felt the dampness of Ray’s sweater against his cheek that he realized he was crying. Mikey had let his composure slip and now it was cracked and there was no fixing it. He just cried, choking out sobs, not able to say a word, and really, what was there to say?

The baby had never been his, not really, but it still felt like a loss. It still felt like part of him was missing, part of him would never be replaced, and he ached to hold the baby he would never get to hold. Instead, he held Ray, his hands grabbing at whatever part of Ray’s clothing he could reach and clinging to it with all he had. Ray just let him cry. There was pressure at his back, and he realized then how sturdy and strong Ray was, how unlike himself, thin and weedy and only not gangly because he had finally grown out of his teenage years and started eating food that wasn’t complete junk. Ray was sturdy, and he gave incredible hugs, and Mikey was immensely grateful for that because it kept him from feeling like he was completely falling apart.

He still felt broken, like he was missing something, but he trusted that Ray wasn’t going to let him break any further, at least not right then. He thought he heard someone come into the kitchen but then Ray turned his head and after a few seconds, whoever it was left, and still, Mikey cried. It wasn’t glamorous or put together, not even remotely cool, but Mikey couldn’t care about that right then. He wasn’t sure why he had ever cared, because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how cool or successful or good of a person he was because the universe still took what it wanted and gave no mercy and Mikey was tired. He was bone tired, existence tired, sadness tired. He was tired of mourning people he loved, or people that were loved by the people he loved. In the last year, they had lost Darcy, and now the baby. Mikey was tired, but Ray was there and Ray wasn’t letting him fall, even if Mikey felt like that was his only option. He had never felt so steadied by another person.

Eventually, eventually, Mikey seemed to catch his breath. He felt no shame after he stopped crying, even though he’d expected it. Not that he was embarrassed by crying, it was just such an intimate thing to do in someone else’s kitchen, in front of someone else he didn’t know all that well. He figured he couldn’t feel the shame because all of his feeling was taken up by an unending emptiness that he didn’t even know how to begin to fill. He hadn’t wanted the baby, but now he wasn’t going to have her. Her. He hadn’t let himself think about that, not since Melody had told him.

Eventually Ray let Mikey go and he couldn’t help but sink to the floor. Instead of trying to pull him back up, Ray sat down next to him, their shoulders pressed together and their legs stretched out in front of them. It was only then that Mikey realized he hadn’t turned on the damn kitchen light, and neither had anyone else who had come into the room since he had. He shook his head and turned his head towards Ray.

“We were going to name her Shelby.”

Mikey felt Ray tense up against him, like he wasn’t expecting Mikey to say that of all things. But he relaxed after a moment and let Mikey go on without a word, and Mikey was immensely grateful for it.

“Shelby Anne Way, or something like that. Shelby Lynn Way. I don’t know. We hadn’t decided on a middle name yet. That was only if she was a girl. Melody kept joking that we would name the baby Michael if it was a boy but I didn’t want to be one of those pompous assholes that names the kid after himself. What is that?”

Mikey felt Ray’s hand fall to his other shoulder, so that his arm was stretched across the back of Mikey’s shoulders, hunched over as he was. The weight of it felt calming, even though Mikey didn’t feel like he was about to explode from all of the emotions he wasn’t sharing anymore. He’d shared them all, in tears, all over Frank’s kitchen. He was surprised that the entire room wasn’t flooded.

Ray still didn’t say anything, just nodded and touched the ends of Mikey’s hair, like he was soothing a small child, and Mikey certainly felt soothed, or at least quieted. He chewed at his lip and tipped his head onto Ray’s shoulder, feeling very much like he was about to come apart. He hadn’t had hopes of a family of his own, not until Melody had told him he was about to have one, ready or not. Even that wasn’t all that true, because she had told him that he didn’t have to be part of it, not if he didn’t want to. No one wants to raise a kid with their ex-girlfriend, except he had. He had come to want it, had come to look forward to the strange family dynamic they were making up all on their own, with two cribs and two holidays and two houses. Mikey had wanted it, and he knew that was why it had hurt.

“I know I’m not allowed to make it about me. I’m lucky Melody doesn’t say it was my fault for not wanting the baby in the first place. I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

He sighed, half-waiting for Ray to answer and half-hoping he wouldn’t. When the silence stayed, he kept talking.

“She was with her family when I got there. She called them before she called me. I know I don’t matter, but fuck.”

“You matter, Mikey.” It was still dark in the kitchen, but Ray was close enough that Mikey could kind of see his face.

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“No, I –”

Mikey couldn’t finish his sentence with Ray’s mouth pressed to his own, but he didn’t care. He felt something bright and hopeful start to leak into his chest, and as terrifying as that was, it was better than the emptiness.

After a moment of hesitation, Mikey kissed him back.

* * *

Ray thought he would feel guilty, but he didn’t. Maybe he should. He never had actually talked to Dawn about whether or not Mark was a friend or more than that, which he didn’t think was his fault. He hadn’t had time. Not even a week had passed and so much had happened. Between the Mikey revelation and then Frank and Gerard and then Mikey and Melody’s baby, and then the kiss… for someone who hated change, Ray’d had to deal with a lot of it in the last week. It felt like a completely different timeline, and the only things that were the same were his kids. He was immensely grateful for them and the way they had woke him up on Saturday morning like they always did, jumping on his bed and begging him to make them pancakes before their mom showed up to pick them up for the weekend. It was way too early, and Ray hadn’t slept much, but he grinned and got up and helped them pack their overnight bags in between waffles.

Things with Noah and Logan were exactly the same as they always were, down to the same fight that they always got into about who got to use the syrup first. It shouldn’t be an issue, Ray had said over and over again — putting syrup on waffles should take about ten seconds, max. The problem was that Logan liked to draw intricate designs on his plate with the syrup and Noah took his time and filled every single square one at a time. Usually it drove Ray insane, but that morning, it was comforting in its consistency.

Ray chose to cover his own waffles in fresh berries to get that fruit serving out of the way and cut down on sugar all at the same time — he didn’t give up buttering them though. He was a big believer in living life without giving up all of the good stuff or else what was the point? As he chewed his food, he considered the situation again, letting the chatter of his boys fade into the background of his thoughts.

Mikey had been secretly watching his videos for at least a few months, even making a profile to comment on the videos. Last weekend, he had told Ray that he was the one who had been behind the comments. Before Ray could talk to Mikey about it, they had all gotten news that Melody had lost the baby, Mikey’s baby. When Ray had been trying to comfort Mikey, they had ended up on the floor of Frank’s kitchen, which sounded a lot more scandalous than it actually was, even if Ray had kissed Mikey.

He thought that might be the most surprising part of all of it, not that it was easy to pick one part out of everything. There were many, many surprising things from the last week, and the Mikey situation in particular. But Ray hadn’t meant to kiss Mikey when he had walked into that kitchen. He hadn’t even been intending to talk to him about the video thing. Everything that Ray had been stressing out about and wanting to figure out took an immediate backseat as soon as Gerard had texted him the news.

Ray knew what that felt like. He knew the heartbreak of it. He and Dawn had lost a baby between Logan and Noah, and he was almost positive Mikey was feeling pretty similar to how he had felt then. It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t right. There were so many resources for grieving mothers, and it made sense. It was Dawn and Melody who had carried the babies, it was them who’d lost them. There had to be an immense amount of pain and guilt there, emotional and physical, and Ray in no way wanted to belittle their suffering.

At the same time, he remembered feeling incredibly alone. He remembered trying to talk to Dawn and be intimate with her only for her to literally push him away. Ray hadn’t even wanted to get physical, he just wanted to be close to her. He just wanted to know that he wasn’t alone, that the two of them were going through the same thing, that they could find solace with each other. Dawn hadn’t wanted that.

He could only imagine that it was worse for Mikey, who didn’t even have Melody to lean on. Sure, they’d been planning to co-parent their child, but they weren’t together. There was a difference between parenting a child and losing one, and he had heard of lots of cases where completely happy parents with healthy relationships had lost a child only to watch their marriage shrivel up and die from their grief. Mikey and Melody hadn’t even had a relationship to lose.

The last thing Ray had wanted was for Mikey to feel as alone as he had, and he had tried to make sure that Mikey knew he was there. Once he had found him in the kitchen, he had sat with him, hugged him while he cried, kept an arm around him while he talked about it. Ray didn’t know how to fix anything, and he didn’t know what to say to help Mikey start to heal, but he knew how to listen. He was great at listening. Ray had sat on the floor listening to Mikey talk about how it wasn’t his place to hurt, almost as if he were speaking with Ray’s voice from six years ago. He had wanted to pull all of the sadness out of Mikey, but that was impossible, and in lieu of that, he’d kissed him.

It hadn’t been a very long kiss, or a very good one. What Ray remembered the most was the way Mikey’s face had felt under his hand, his cheek slick with tears. It wasn’t romantic, not really, but he had just wanted to comfort him in any way that he could, and his face had just been right there. Ray had acted on instinct, and his instinct had told him to kiss Mikey, so he had. He wasn't sure if it was the right choice, if it’d been the right thing to do, but he couldn't take it back.

Mikey hadn't even flinched. Before Ray could even start to second-guess himself like he always did, Mikey had started to kiss him back. It wasn't a deep kiss, but it lasted longer than Ray had expected it to, and when they had both pulled away, there had been something that vaguely resembled a smile on Mikey’s mouth.

The smile hadn’t lasted long either. There hadn’t been much in that moment for Mikey to smile about, and Ray wasn’t stupid enough to think that everything would get better for him just because Ray had kissed him. All of his problems were still very real problems, but Ray was happy to distract him for a moment, even if that’s all it had been. For a few minutes, the two of them had just stayed on the floor, just sitting in silence with their shoulders pressed together. Even then in the middle of it, it had felt like the moment of calm that comes in the eye of the storm, a metaphor that was strengthened when one of the kids had ran into the dark kitchen wearing socks and slid across the tiled floor, slipping onto their back with a bang.

Ray had stood up so fast that the kid had still been on the ground and when he had found the light switch, he’d found Logan staring up at him with a shocked face. It was another five seconds before it seemed to hit him that he’d fallen, and hard at that, and then Ray had been occupied with trying to assess the damages through his kid’s top-volume bawling. By the time Ray had ascertained that Logan was mostly just surprised by falling and hadn’t actually broken anything, Mikey had slipped out of the kitchen. He figured that was for the best — he didn’t want to follow him or try to find him, afraid that Mikey might feel smothered. If he needed time, he could take it. Ray would be there when Mikey needed him. In the meantime, he’d taken Logan back into the living room where Frank and Gerard and the rest of the kids had started a movie and then went back into the kitchen to start popcorn.

An hour or so had passed without Mikey coming back, and Ray had just assumed that he’d gone out and taken a long walk for some air. It wasn’t until the movie on the TV had ended and the Gerard had started to pack up Hunter’s stuff that Ray had asked him if he knew where Mikey went. Gerard had glanced at the kids, all of whom were being entertained by Frank, and had told Ray in a hushed tone that Mikey had gone home, slipped out when Ray was making popcorn.

Ray certainly understood that. There were some things that needed a longer break than a walk would allow, and all of the kids could be a lot to deal with, even when they were in either Frank or Ray’s house instead of the Way apartment. Mikey would find him when he was ready to talk.

The next biggest problem was Dawn, though he was well aware that his marriage should be his biggest priority as far as problem solving went. It was just less pressing in the light of Mikey losing his baby, which he understood, and really, he didn’t have to justify it to anyone but himself.

Ray definitely needed to talk to his wife about things. He needed to find out what was going on with Mark and tell her about the kiss with Mikey, which would bring about a whole host of questions he wasn’t sure how to answer. For him, it wasn’t about the fact that Mikey was a guy, it was about the fact that someone had turned to him for comfort. Ray hadn’t realized how important being needed like that was until that moment when Mikey had needed him, even if it was just because he was nearby. All those years he and Dawn had been married and he couldn’t remember her ever needing him, in any way. The last thing he wanted was a spouse that was completely dependent on him, but Dawn seemed hell-bent on not needing Ray for anything, not even when they’d suffered a miscarriage of their own.

Even now, she was slowly untangling herself from him, and he had been too wrapped up to see it for what it was. Dawn had been the one who wanted a separation, she had been the one to move out even at the expense of seeing her kids less, she had wanted to separate their finances. She knew Ray better than anyone, knew that he hated change, that he was resistant to it and would convince her to stay if she said she wanted a divorce. Instead, she had done it slowly, taken her time to untangle herself step by step, and Ray had just been too dense to not see it.

His thoughts were interrupted when Noah said “Dad” again to get his attention and Ray realized he’d probably been trying to for awhile. Shaking his head, he grinned sheepishly and apologized, both of his kids cracking up with their mouths full of waffle, and Ray couldn’t help but smile a bit wider. Things would be okay, somehow.

He wasn’t about to stop disliking change, but he couldn’t really stop it, either. Things would happen, the world was ever-changing, and if he kept resisting it, he wouldn’t make it through.

After they finished breakfast, Ray cleaned up the dishes while the boys finished packing and brought their stuff into the living room. They sat on the couch watching a show, shoes on and completely ready to go. Dawn didn’t like to be kept waiting when she picked them up, which they were all but trained to do now. Usually Ray just hugged them and sent them out the door to the car, but he would have to deviate from the plan this morning. He planned to tell the kids to stay put on the couch when Dawn honked her horn so that he could go out to the car and talked to her. It wasn’t the best place or time for a conversation, but he could probably ask her to meet him within the next few days. They could go out for coffee or something, and Ray could ask Frank or Gerard to watch the kids, or even his mom, though he knew that Dawn would hate asking her for anything.

His mom wasn’t that bad, Dawn just didn’t like her, which he’d always thought was a made-up pop culture thing. Hating your mother-in-law seemed like such a fake phenomenon, especially when said mother-in-law was his own mother, who he loved. Maybe he was wrong though. Ray was her baby, and she had been protective of him, and his mom always wanted Dawn to be more of a housewife. That was never up to her, or what Ray expected, or what Dawn wanted, so it hadn’t even entered the realm of reality for him. He’d expected his mom to figure it out sooner or later, so he hadn’t said anything to correct her, and she had kept up the well-meaning comments the entire time that Dawn and Ray had been married. Maybe Dawn was right, and he should have asked her to stop a long time ago.

Ray was wiping the table down when there was a knock at the door, and he shouted for the boys to leave it since they were closer to the front door. The deadbolt was too high for Noah to reach, but Logan could get to it easily now, if his recent growth spurts were anything to go by. Luckily it hadn’t caused problems yet, but Logan was halfway to the door when Ray got out into the hallway. Ray would need to talk to them about safety and letting an adult answer the door, even though it was a conversation they’d already had. They were getting older and Ray didn’t mind having the same conversations over and over again until it stuck.

When he opened the door, Dawn was standing there, much to his surprise.

“Hi, Ray.”

He noticed that she didn’t look made up like she usually did. Even on the weekends, she put makeup on before he even saw her to exchange the kids, and she was usually wearing something nicer than just jeans and a sweatshirt. Standing in front of him, her hair was pulled back and she had a hoodie on that he hadn’t seen her wear since college. He was pretty sure she had stolen it from him, though it’d been hers far longer than it had been his. He hadn’t even known she still owned it.

“Hey, this is new.” Even Ray wasn’t sure if he meant it as a joke about the sweatshirt or her coming up to the door to get the kids, and he was the one that said it.

Even if her wardrobe hadn’t set off a flag, her body language would have. Her shoulders were low, almost like she was ashamed, and when she smiled at him, it seemed forced in a different way than usual, like it wasn’t just for his benefit. Ray knew his jokes weren’t funny to her anymore, but this seemed like she wasn’t even remotely happy, like her smile was just out of habit and not out of any sense of obligation to Ray. He wanted to ask what it was about, what was going on, but he didn’t think that was his place anymore, and he didn’t want to make her feel like she had to talk about it just because he expected her to.

“The kids are all ready to go, so I can just—”

“Actually,” she interrupted, “Can we talk?”

It was like she had read his mind or something, and he took a step back to let her into the house.

“I’ll go tell the boys to keep watching their show for a little while. There’s coffee in the kitchen, if you want.” He smiled warmly at her and refrained from saying that it looked like she needed the caffeine.

Once the boys were settled again, he joined her in the kitchen. She’d found the coffee and the cups (which wasn’t surprising; they were both in the same place they’d been when she lived there just a few months ago). Ray refilled his own cup of coffee before sitting at the table across from her. He waited for her to talk because it was obvious she had something to say. Even if it seemed like she’d somehow known he wanted to talk to her, he knew that couldn’t just be it. Dawn was usually comfortable taking the lead in any situation, but she looked a bit like a deflated balloon.

“Is everything okay?”

Without looking up at him from where she was staring into her cup of coffee, she nodded. Ray didn’t think he needed to prompt her for more of a response, she would only get irritated with him if he pressed her, he knew that from experience. Eventually, after she took a drink and wrapped her hands around her mug, she sighed and lifted her face.

“I have to tell you something.”

If Ray hadn't already been on high alert, that would have done the trick. Nothing good could come from a talk that was introduced formally like that, and Dawn hadn't even said they needed to talk. She’d said she needed to talk, which made him think she had something to confess, and rather than sit and wait and get the information that was about to get handed to him anyways, his mind instantly started to spiral out of control. He finally caught himself, but not until he’d already thought through twenty different reasons that Dawn would need to sit him down and tell him something while looking like she hadn’t slept all night.

“Okay,” he said, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “Go for it.”

“I don’t know how to say this…”

“Dawn, I promise, if you don’t tell me right now, I’m probably going to have a heart attack from imagining all of the things that you could be telling me.”

“Right, right.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, looking as apologetic as he’d ever seen her. “Sorry. Um, so, I met someone. Not really meeting, though, I already knew him from work, and you’ve met him, actually. I know that’s probably the last thing you want to hear right now, but… nothing happened until we’d already separated, I promise.”

For a moment, Ray just blinked at her, taking in what she was saying. That was at least one of his fears confirmed, but he was surprised that he wasn’t actually all that shocked. Suddenly, it all made sense: the way that Dawn had pulled away over the last few years, how she had been the one to take the worse end of the separation deal, the look his kids had exchanged when they had actually mentioned the guy’s name at lunch. Ray looked at Dawn, chewing at his lip as he considered everything.

“You feel guilty.”

“Of course, I feel guilty. This is our marriage, and it’s not something I ever wanted to or expected to happen like this, but here we are.”

“Is? This is our marriage? Or this was? Because it seems to me like you’ve already made up your mind, like it was already made before you showed up here. You’re guilty but you’re not repentant, like you’re not asking for my forgiveness, you’re trying to justify yourself.”

“That’s because I don’t need your forgiveness.”

“Right, I guess you don’t.”

“I don’t. Nothing happened when you and I were together.”

“Together? Do I need to remind you that we’re still married?”

“Separated. We’re separated, and that’s not the same thing.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Alright, Dawn, then what do you want from me?”

“I want a divorce!”

As they had been arguing, their voices had gotten louder, in a hushed whisper kind of way that the kids hopefully wouldn’t hear, but that exclamation seemed to break the spell and they both fell into silence.

“I don’t… I don’t understand how we went from happily married to separated to you wanting to get a divorce now. I don’t understand. I need you to walk me through it because I don’t know how we got here.”

“We just grew apart, Ray.”

“No. No, that isn’t it.” Ray shook his head, feeling furious but keeping his voice down. He wasn’t about to yell at her, no matter how angry he was. He wasn’t that kind of person. “That’s bullshit, and you know it, and I know it. You grew apart from me, which is different than us growing apart, and I want to know why, and I want to know how.”

“You don’t want to know that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. You might think you do, but you really don’t.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to know because I don’t want this to happen, but it is happening, and I’m never going to let it go if I don’t understand it. I need to know. You owe me that much.”

Dawn held his gaze and then looked away, biting at her lip. He could tell she knew he was right; she didn’t often let him win things, but she was in the wrong here, and no matter what’d happened between them, Dawn was a good person who’d cared about Ray enough to marry him.

“You’re right. Okay.”

Over the course of the next hour, Dawn explained everything that had happened in vague detail, which Ray was grateful for. He didn’t think that he could the actual details of any of it, no matter how understanding he was trying to be. Mark was indeed the Mark that Dawn worked with, and they had been talking and growing closer over the past few years. At some point, Mark and Dawn had ended up alone, and while she maintained that nothing had happened, apparently it had been a close call, and it was shortly thereafter that Dawn asked Ray for the separation. After everything had settled, they’d started seeing each other.

The reason that it was a bigger thing now, the kind of thing that Dawn needed to talk to Ray about instead of hiding it, was apparently Mark’s fault too. He had met the kids again the previous weekend, and he had loved them. According to Dawn, Mark apparently wanted to be a bigger part of her life than her current situation allowed, and they had gotten into a fight the night before, at the end of which he had given her an ultimatum. That ultimatum was to leave Ray for good or lose Mark, and she clearly had made her choice.

As they sat there in silence, Dawn’s story told, Noah wandered in and whined that he was tired of wearing his shoes, and Logan shouted from the living room, asking if he could have a snack. Ray got up and fixed them a few cracker sandwiches with cheese and lunch meat, which was a familiar snack in their house. The boys called it ‘fake lunchables’ and Ray thought it was funny every time, but this time he was positive that his smile didn’t reach his eyes. As he moved back into the kitchen, he filled his coffee cup again and did the same for Dawn, knowing without asking that she would want another cup.

They sat in silence for another few moments before Dawn spoke up, never content to sit with the silence like Ray was.

“Ray? Please say something.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I think it’s pretty clear where we go from here.”

“Yeah.” She got quiet again after that, which Ray was grateful for. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak to her, he was just out of productive things to say, things that wouldn’t make the situation worse somehow. He needed a few moments of quiet to gather his thoughts, and Dawn seemed to sense this, because she stayed quiet. It didn’t last, but it was an effort on her part, and he appreciated it enough not to be irritated when she broke the silence again.

“Are you angry?”

“What? No.” He gave a quick shake of his head and sniffed, looking down at his coffee. Maybe he’d initially felt anger, but the longer Dawn had spoken, the less potent that feeling had become.

“I thought you would be angry.”

“I’m not angry. Angry would mean that I want you to hurt, and I’m don’t. I’m hurt, but I don’t want you to. There’s a difference.”

Ray looked up at her and saw that she was chewing at her lip again, obviously thinking and holding back her thoughts. She looked so incredibly ashamed and there was no way he could let that stand, not with the truth still hidden.

“I have something to tell you too, actually.” Dawn tipped her eyes up at him again, the slightest glimpse of hope in them. Ray had to believe it was hope he would be less hurt and not that Dawn wanted him to be somehow at fault too, like her betrayal would be less of a betrayal if he’d done something he needed to confess, too. “Maybe that’s why I’m not mad. I don’t know.”

“What is it?”

“I… kissed someone else. Last night.”

“Oh.” She frowned. It wasn’t the same, not at all. A kiss wasn’t a relationship, and Ray felt almost numb as he realized that he’d been right with his suspicion, and she had wanted him to have failed too. “Who is she?”

“Actually, it’s more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to get into it right now. It was a friend, and that’s all that matters.”

Dawn frowned at him, her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. Ray could already tell that she wasn’t going to let him get away with his half-hearted excuse, so he sighed.

“It was Mikey.”

“Oh? Oh.” Ray knew that she knew who Mikey was. The kids talked about the other dads that Ray was friends with almost as much as they talked about him, and he was sure that was also true when they were with their mom. “That’s… why? Did you just want to see what kissing a guy was like or something? I know we were together pretty much all through college and they talk about experimenting, but maybe you didn’t get the chance back then. Is that what it was?”

“Dawn, no, it wasn’t like that. He’s going through some shit and he was just so upset and sad, I thought that maybe kissing him would distract him from being sad. It worked, for a minute at least.”

“Wait. You kissed him because he was sad and you didn’t want him to be?”

“I mean, yeah.”

Dawn started to laugh. It was something like a hiccup at first and then she repeated it, and the sound bloomed into a full-on laugh. Ray didn’t really understand exactly why she was laughing, but it was the first time he’d heard it in months and he couldn’t keep himself from laughing too. It was contagious, a tiny laughing disease that they passed back and forth, one of them finally quieting just for the other to giggle again and then it would start all over.

A whole five minutes passed like that before Dawn eventually closed her eyes to focus on breathing, and Ray watched her flushed face as she huffed out another half-laugh.

“Oh, Ray.” She wiped her eyes, shaking her head, and Ray flashed her a smile. He felt better after the laughter, and she seemed to as well.

“I don’t understand you.” She shook her head again, but she looked at him as she did, sighing. “Even after all of these years. I kept expecting to, but it never happened, and I think that’s probably my fault. Maybe I just didn’t try hard enough.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“I do. It isn’t that hard to understand you, but I didn’t want to think it was that simple. You want everyone to be happy and everything to be peaceful, but that isn’t always enough. You can’t kiss a problem away.”

Ray started to protest but Dawn cut him off, shushing him.

“I know it’s more complicated than that, I know I’m oversimplifying it, but I also think you hoped, at least on some level, that he might actually feel better.”

“He did, though. For a few minutes, I mean.”

It was Dawn’s turn to shake her head, again. He wondered if she was getting dizzy.

“I know, Ray, but that’s not…”

“I know it’s not. It doesn’t fix anything, but that wasn’t the only reason, it was just the most pressing one.” He shrugged, staring down at his coffee again. “I probably would have kissed him eventually, anyways.”

Ray could feel heat on his cheeks, and he wondered what alternate universe he had ended up in where he was sitting at his kitchen table in the middle of getting divorced, telling his soon-to-be-ex-wife about kissing a guy that he was probably interested in. When he looked back up at Dawn, she seemed about as baffled by the situation as he was.

“You know that’s okay, right?”

“Well, yeah.” Ray huffed out a bit of a laugh. He had stressed out about his feelings enough, and only rarely was that stress centered around the fucking fact that Mikey wasn’t a woman. “I mean, there are gonna be assholes regardless, but I know it’s okay. It’ll be fine.”

“So will we. I know it might not feel like it right now, given the changes, but we will be. At the end of this all, we’ll be able to look back and remember this moment when everything felt so up in the air, and it will be better.”

Ray looked at her and sighed. Getting from where he was to that point wasn’t going to be easy, but he was determined to face it with as much determination as he’d ever had for anything.

“Yeah. I know it will.”

Later, when the Dawn had finally left and taken the kids with her for what was left of the day and the weekend, Ray found himself wandering through the house like he had the first weekend he had sent the kids with Dawn. He picked up his phone and thought about texting Mikey only to set it down again. Mikey obviously needed time, and Ray would give that to him. What Ray wanted could wait.

He pulled out his guitar and started to play, losing himself in the music for the first time in awhile. When he finally set it down again, his fingertips were raw, it was dark outside, and he felt a little calmer, a bit more at peace with himself and with all of the situations he found himself in. Dawn was right. They would be okay. It would take time, but they would be okay.


	7. Chapter 7

Mikey had gone to visit his parents. He wasn’t sure why he’d gone there, of all places, but he had needed to get out and get some time to himself. It was the first place he’d thought of after leaving Frank’s house, and after stopping at his apartment to pack an overnight bag, he made the drive up to Belleville.

His parents tended to be a bit backwards about all of things that made Gerard and Mikey themselves, for no good reason. Maybe if they’d taken the family to church more than a handful of times since they were kids, Mikey would have understood. It was one thing if they’d had religious beliefs that went against Gerard’s relationship preferences or the fact that he’d had a child with someone he had no intention of marrying, ever. They didn’t, though. They were just judgmental for the hell of it, with no moral ground of their own to stand on, and Mikey loved his parents, but he despised them for the way they had hurt Gerard. It’d been years and they still weren’t on speaking terms with his brother, but Mikey was still welcome to visit. He usually didn’t want to, but he needed to be reminded of how far he had come.

Right after Gerard had graduated from art school, Mikey had gone to stay with him for almost a year. He’d told Gerard that he needed a break from home, but what he’d really needed was to see what life was like outside of his parents’ house. Their first instinct when things went wrong was to take a bunch of pills to numb the pain or down a few beers until they went to sleep; it was hard to be stressed out about something if they weren’t conscious. He’d watched such an attitude destroy his parents, and then had watched it almost take Gerard too, after Elena’s death. Gerard had gotten sober, though, and Mikey hated that he felt he was at the same crossroads his brother had been at right before moving to Seattle. He’d never wanted to fall into the addictive cycle that his parents had practically patented, but life had been so intense recently that it’d happened without him meaning for it to.

Apparently it was perfectly acceptable for him to show up unannounced at his parents house because neither of them said more than hello. It was kind of odd that neither of them batted an eye, but Mikey was too exhausted to overthink it, and he took his bag and the case of beer he’d bought at a gas station on the way down to Gerard’s old room. He turned his phone off; Mikey could count on one hand the people who might try to check on him, and he wasn’t ready to speak to any of them. He drank, and then he slept, and then drank, and then slept. Eventually he ran out of alcohol and then he just slept. Sometimes when he was conscious, he would wander up to the kitchen for food, not that there was anything with actual sustenance. He settled for a box of crackers, some jerky, and a bottle of cinnamon whisky that he was pretty sure had been in the cabinet since he was in high school. The shit was nasty, but it made him stop thinking and feeling, which was the whole point.

He finished the whiskey on his fourth night at his parents house, sometime in the early morning. Since he’d been drunk round the clock, he hadn’t really worried about a hangover, but he was completely out of alcohol, and that was a problem. Mikey made his way up to the kitchen again to stand at the sink, drink three big cups of water, and then gone back downstairs to pass out again.

When he woke up, he felt more like himself and less like the Mikey who’d been about to come apart at the seams after everything with Melody and the baby and Ray. God, he had almost royally fucked that up. Frank and Gerard were free to do whatever they wanted, but he wasn’t about to mess up the group dynamic if he could help it, not for a little bit of affection that there was no chance would be returned. The kiss had just been a kiss, nothing more. Ray was so kind that he would do anything for any of his friends, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. And Mikey was positive he wasn’t what Ray wanted. That hadn’t been his only reason for skipping town, though. He knew that Ray wouldn’t have made a big thing of it, but Mikey needed to get his head on straight before he could even begin dealing with anything.

He knew what he felt for Ray, or what he was capable of feeling. He felt more from the one kiss with him than he’d felt at all in the entire span of his relationship with Melody. But that didn’t change the fact that Ray was married, and though he was separated from his wife, Mikey wasn’t about to push it. Even if the good of the group hadn’t been at stake, Mikey was almost positive that Ray was pretty straight. Mikey was usually better about keeping his hands to himself, but he had spent so many hours over the past few months using Ray’s videos as a coping mechanism that when Ray was there in front of him, in the flesh and just as calming in real life as he was digitally, Mikey hadn’t stood a chance.

It’d probably been one of the weakest moments in Mikey’s life, and he hadn’t even been drunk. Mikey had needed someone to lean on so badly, and there Ray had been, without him even asking. He was a good friend, a wonderful friend, and Mikey definitely wasn’t about ruin his friendship with Ray when it’d become so important to his well-being. It was just a kiss, and if Mikey could get past it on his own, then he would be okay. They would be okay.

Mikey took a long, hot shower and then went upstairs, looking for some food. Most of the food in his parents’ house was comprised of frozen dinners or boxed pasta casseroles, though he did find a jar of peaches in syrup that was only two months past the expiration date. By no means was Mikey a clean eater or whatever the hell they were called, but he ate dinner with Gerard and Hunter more often than not, and they always had fruit or vegetables. After his bender, he found himself craving something with a vitamin or two, and none of the processed food would do.

He told his mom he’d be back and then he went to the grocery store, shopping for everything he needed to make an actual meal. He knew his parents didn’t expect it of him, but he thought it was the right thing to do, if only so they got a little bit of nutrition, too. He ended up buying enough food to last a few days because he wasn’t ready to go back home just yet, but he didn’t want to eat junk the whole time he was there.

He stayed away from the alcohol aisle.

For the next few days, Mikey spent a lot of time alone in the basement. He wasted a lot of time going through some of the boxes that had been abandoned down there, but he also thought a lot. About Melody, about the baby, about Ray. He thought about Gerard and Hunter and how much his life had changed in the months since they had moved out from Seattle. He thought about how much he missed Ray’s kids and Frank’s girls, and even Frank a little bit, though he’d never admit it. He emerged only to cook dinner or to make himself a sandwich. His parents begrudgingly ate whatever he made for them, never once complaining or even asking why he was there. It was almost like they were still living their regular lives, and Mikey was just some ghost that kept force-feeding them relatively healthy food.

That was completely fine with Mikey; he wasn’t there because of them. He had let their relationship lapse after that last Christmas, after his mom had sworn she was never speaking to Gerard again. He knew that she had been high on pills at the time, but that didn’t excuse her behavior. A lot had changed since Mikey was a kid but Gerard was still his hero and always would be, and he would never forget the look on Gerard’s face when their mom had told him what a freak and loser he’d grown up into. Back in high school, Gerard had been called those things all the time, but it was different coming from his mom, and so vehemently at that. Gerard had sworn that would be the very last time he ever came around, and Mikey completely understood and supported him.

He hadn’t even told his parents about Melody’s pregnancy because he hadn’t wanted to face their disappointment. It was probably for the best, now that there wasn’t going to be a baby, but Mikey felt like a coward all the same. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle his mom calling him a loser too, not when his skin hadn’t been hardened over the years by the same insults that Gerard’s had. He wasn’t even sure he was courageous enough now, he just knew that he’d gone out to visit his parents with the express purpose of pulling himself together. He had thought that he needed to come clean with his parents to do that, but somewhere along the line, he realized that he didn’t care what they thought of him.

One night they were sitting at the dinner table, his dad pushing the meal Mikey had made around on his plate while his mom did the best to choke it down with diet soda, and Mikey realized that they weren’t his family anymore. He didn’t need their approval in any way, didn’t need their disappointment in him and his life choices. Mikey considered himself to be a genuinely well-off person, if not exactly happy. He was still working on that part, and the thing with the baby had thrown him off considerably, but he was awake now. Ever since that dinner with Melody had thrown his entire life out of whack, he felt like he had been drifting without purpose. But now, he was good and ready to live and survive and seek happiness, even if it was slow to come to him. He didn’t need his parents for that.

He needed his real family, and his real family was at home. After dinner, he went to his room and started to pack. When he came across his phone, he turned it back on and watched a bunch of notifications scroll across the screen. He saw a notification from Gerard about Hunter’s birthday and he cursed, because he hadn’t meant to miss it. He would have to buy him something really good to make up for it. The only other text he was immediately interested in was one from Melody that just said ‘hey are you around’. She had sent it a few days earlier, and he typed out a reply, apologizing for the late response and asking if he could bring her anything. Her text came in right after he got into his car, saying that she could use a coffee.

Mikey grinned, knowing that it probably wasn’t as funny as he found it, but she answered his laughing emoji with one of her own, and he knew that they would be okay, too. He let her know he’d be there in a few hours, and then headed back towards his city.

He was going home.

* * *

It had been a long time coming, Ray thought. He’d held onto hope that the separation would end in reconciliation for a long time, but it’d really just stalled the inevitable. Since Dawn’s confession, there was no potential for a reconciliation, and rather than find himself disappointed as he might have expected, he was just relieved. He’d maintained that he wanted to repair his marriage until the end, and now it was so clearly over and all he felt was this release, like he didn’t need to pretend anymore. It was a pretty ugly sentiment, so he didn’t try voicing it or putting it into words anywhere, but he definitely felt better, freer, and he didn’t think it was just a gut reaction to being told he was off the hook.

Ray’s major concern with getting divorced was that it would ruin their kids’ lives, but there were so many kids that didn’t have both parents involved at every step of their lives and they were doing alright. He and Dawn had already shown that they could do this, successfully even, sharing custody and still being around for all of the important things for their kids. Ray thought it helped that they weren’t angry at each other, that their marriage hadn’t ended in flames and destruction, but in a slow fizzling out of the hearth fire that kept their marriage alive. Ray wasn’t angry, he was just sad for the end of it, and he thought that was pretty normal when a ten-year relationship came to an end.

He was okay with it, and he was happy for Dawn, that she’d found someone who made her feel desirable and important when Ray had failed to be that person. He wasn’t in love with her still, and he wasn’t even remotely jealous that she had moved on.

In fact, he was contemplating the idea of moving on himself. Ever since he and Mikey had kissed in the kitchen, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like he was a teenager again, fixating on his very first kiss with a girl, spending hours as he fell asleep at night trying to remember the way her lips had tasted and felt pressed against his own. Ray wasn’t expecting anything romantic from Mikey, he was just open to the possibility. That was kind of a big thing, and they were both a bit messed up. It was highly possible that Mikey had just been looking for comfort in any form available, and he thought he was okay with that, however it turned out.

The only problem was that Mikey had disappeared, so it was difficult to get closure on the situation. According to Gerard, Mikey had taken some time off of work and gone on a trip out of town. Ray understood. The last time he had seen Mikey, he had been pretty shaken up about losing the baby, and then Ray had fucking kissed him, which only complicated things even more. Mikey had slipped out of Frank’s house, and Ray hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

He couldn’t help but think that maybe he had something to do with the trip, though he supposed that was pretty self-centered of him. Mikey had just gone through something really traumatic and for Ray to think that one lousy kiss from him had topped that or come even remotely close was kind of ridiculous, and Ray wasn’t usually ridiculous. He tried not to stress about it. He was interested in more of the whole kissing thing if Mikey was, and it was kind of hard to judge that without Mikey actually present to find out.

So he threw himself into other things. He went to work and came home and filmed a new video for his blog, and he baked cupcakes with the boys to celebrate Hunter’s birthday. Gerard said Hunter didn’t want a party or presents, but Ray felt weird about letting a birthday go by uncelebrated, and it was the least they could do. Even though the cupcakes came out dense and kind of weird tasting, Noah decided to building a cupcake tower with them, and Logan figured out that the icing kind of worked like glue. They spent the entire afternoon playing cupcake architects, and Ray ended up buying cupcakes from the store instead.

That Friday, Mikey didn’t show up to Ray’s house. Gerard said Mikey was still out of town, which was why Hunter hadn’t wanted a party. He seemed pretty happy with the cupcakes, though, and Ray pushed aside his worry about Mikey, sure that he was fine. Still, another week went by with no word from Mikey, and Ray was concerned enough that he almost texted him to check on him and ask if he was going to be there that night. He had the message half-typed and everything, and then he deleted it. He wasn’t even sure Mikey wanted to be checked on.

After Ray picked the kids up from school, he took them straight home to get their homework done. When three o’clock rolled around, he let them take a break to call their mom and tell her and Ray all about their days. Ray would put his phone on speaker in the middle of the kitchen table so they could all participate. It was something that had become part of their routine, a way to keep both him and Dawn involved in everything going on in the kids’ lives. If they both were involved in the calls, which sometimes went on for an hour or more, they were both told about all the things that had happened on the playground, or the funny thing that their teacher had said, and they could check in with each other about upcoming plans and who was taking them for which day or to which thing. It was a good system, and Ray loved having it.

After they hung up with Dawn, it was nearly time to get in the car, and Ray made sure both boys had jackets before getting them buckled in. It was always difficult to find parking at the Ways’ apartment complex, but Ray managed it, even if they did have to park in the lot around the other side of the building. He got both kids out of the car and only barely kept Noah from taking off completely confidently in the exact wrong direction, but eventually they were all heading up the right set of stairs. Logan knocked as loudly on the door as he could manage and Ray shook his head at his kid’s exuberance. He hoped Mikey was there, but he was also worried he would be, and that Mikey would give him a look that meant that things weren’t okay between them and Ray had no idea what he would do then.

Mikey opened the door, his smile bright as he greeted them. Ray couldn’t put his finger on it, but Mikey looked like he was more at peace with himself. He didn’t know exactly what had made Mikey feel like he had to get away for awhile, but he was glad that it seemed to have helped.

Ray ushered the kids inside and stopped to hug Mikey. He meant to keep it quick and friendly, but then Mikey hugged him back, arms tightening around him. Ray couldn’t help that his heart sped up, in a way that had nothing to do with his blood pressure or anything else that would have been more age-appropriate than being touched by someone else. When Mikey finally pulled away, Ray saw that he was smiling. The feeling in his chest shifted into a comfortable glow, and he grinned back at Mikey, all of his nervousness gone. No matter how things panned out between them, they would be okay, and that was enough for now.

* * *

In the years since Gemma was born, Frank hadn’t felt anything remotely romantic. He’d felt all sorts of other things; guilt, pride, love for his kids, affection for his wife, happiness, maybe, if he squinted at it the right way. He’d known he didn’t love Nat anymore, and there had been no point in trying to make it work when had been positive he wouldn’t love her again. There wasn’t one thing he could pick out that had made him fall out of love with her, it just wasn’t the same as it had once been. Still, he had tried to make it work, which had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Late at night he wondered if maybe he’d been wrong, knowing he didn’t feel anything like what he had felt for her before.

When they had been teenagers and had gotten pregnant with Izzy, Frank had loved Nat with all of his heart. He had known without a doubt that they would make it work even if no one else believed in them. Even though everyone told him that he was an idiot and a fool for getting his girlfriend pregnant right out of high school and trying to start a family with her, he knew they were wrong. They had only been thinking about the chances of the general population, and that was not Frank Iero, the very same Frank Iero who had dreamed of falling in love since he was a kid.

He had dreamed of other cool stuff, of course, like being in a band and becoming famous and travelling the world. But one of the things he had always wished for was to find a love like the one his grandparents had. The kind of love that he’d seen on holidays, that had made his grandfather, a stoic man, melt whenever Nonna was around. He had wanted that, and he had found it with Nat, or at least something like it, and he had held onto it as hard as he could. He knew what the odds said, he knew that he was never supposed to make it work with her, but he had tried with all he had, and then he had given up. After all of that bravado about making things work, it had turned out that he was weak and a quitter, just like everyone had assumed he would be. Frank had given up on his relationship, on his marriage, far before he had told Nat he wanted to get separated, and he knew that was on him.

She must have known it too, somewhere. She must have sensed it, and it was that sense that must have driven her to her depression. Even if he hadn’t been the cause of it, he certainly hadn’t helped quell it, or helped her work through it. He hadn’t been around enough to help, and Frank knew that he’d been mostly to blame for their marriage ending, even if it was the last thing he had wanted. He had a faith that his kids would be happier without parents who weren’t in love anymore, and Frank was determined not to mess up his kids’ lives as much as he had messed up his own. But he had; splitting up with Nat had resulted in her suicide, and there was no way they were happier with one parent than they had been with two. He knew it was his fault. That guilt was so incredibly massive that he barely had room to feel anything else. Where was he supposed to try and fit in romance?

The answer, apparently, was with Gerard Way.

When they had first met, Frank had thought there was potential for flirtation. He had seen the way that Gerard had stared at him, and of course he knew that he was nice to look at. He wasn’t fucking stupid. There was a reason that a lot of the fans of Ghosted Glory had been young girls, a reason that so many of them had written him letters that would have been obscene if he’d actually read them, which he most definitely didn’t. There was a reason that Dewees had always called him their ‘prettyboy frontman,’ as if he hadn’t had a ton of talent that had absolutely nothing to do with his looks. Dewees knew it got under his skin whenever he said that, but he hadn’t stopped calling Frank that until the end, not even when Frank would flip him off, not even when it was so far beyond not funny anymore, not even when they were barely speaking.

Frank was pretty sure that kind of thing had been part of the reason they’d broken up in the end, though he couldn’t remember it very clearly. One of their very last fights as a band had been about how Dewees didn’t give Frank respect and it had ended with fists, with James walking away with a black eye and Frank slinking out of the recording studio with a mouthful of blood. Unlike previous fights, they hadn’t made up later, and Frank had known that was the start of the end, just like he’d known that his marriage was falling apart after Gemma was born, even if he hadn’t recognized it. It was the same feeling. Frank had been seeing the end of the important things in his life coming and hadn’t done a thing to stop it, and that was his own fault. He hated himself for it.

He disliked peas in anything because they were mushy and disgusting, and he disliked real maple syrup because it was too sweet and strong and he had grown up eating pancake syrup like every other kid in America. He disliked cloudless days because they were too hot, and scratchy sweaters because they were just fucking uncomfortable. He was terrified of spiders, though he understood why they were necessary as part of nature, but he didn’t hate them. Hate was an emotion that Frank reserved for only the truly heinous, the truly terrible and unforgivable.

Frank hated himself.

It wasn’t just blind hatred — he had always hated himself at least on some level but since Nat’s death there was even more fuel there for him to burn his own effigy. There was no way to know whether Nat had ended everything because of their separation, or if his presence would have even changed anything, but Frank had to assume the worst. For all he knew, he could have stopped her, or noticed the signs before it was too late instead of writing it off as the regular kind of sadness that anyone would feel when their family fell apart. He hadn’t known that it was serious, and now, his girls were going to grow up without their mother.

On top of that guilt, which was enough alone to make sure he never liked himself again, there was the reason that kept him up at night, haunting his thoughts when his mind refused to slow down: That he wasn’t good enough as a father. Frank hadn’t been around much when Izzy was really little; touring and pushing the band as hard as possible had kept him away, and for what he had been around for, he didn’t remember being very confident in his abilities. He always wanted to give his daughter everything she ever wanted, which Nat reminded him he couldn’t do, and he hadn’t really gotten the hang of diaper changing, not until Olly, and by then Izzy was already seven. Frank tried his hardest to be good for them, to be a good role model and make sure that there was balance between their needs and wants without giving in to their every whim, but he wasn’t sure it was enough. Nat had been a natural, but fathering had never come easily to Frank the way that music did, and now he was on his own.

Gerard was actually the one who suggested that Frank see a therapist, something he’d initially been strongly against. Frank hadn’t thought a therapist would help, not seeing the merit in talking to someone about things that had already happened. In Gerard’s opinion, the darkness was only so lonely because Frank remained hellbent on doing it alone, but Gerard reminded him that it didn’t have to be that way.

There was a lot to unpack there, and Frank knew he had to start somewhere. After some intense searching, he had found a therapist that seemed to be a good match, and he’d started seeing her weekly. So far, she’d actually been incredibly helpful, listening to Frank without an ounce of judgment and giving him concrete things to work on instead of just vague suggestions. She had even recommended a few therapists for his girls, who all had their own things to work through from the fallout of their mother’s passing.

Frank had to admit that Gerard had been right about the therapist, and he’d been right about letting someone in too, even if he’d meant himself. Frank was willing to overlook the inherent selfishness of that.

Since the night of the sweatshirt incident, Gerard had been around a lot more. They weren’t living together or anything like that yet, but he and Hunter came over for dinner more often than just on Friday’s, and Frank now allowed himself to touch Gerard even when they weren’t alone. Not that the touching was sexual, though it was sometimes flirty. There was something incredibly comforting about having regular physical contact and affection with another person that Frank hadn’t realized he was missing.

His girls had been generally positive about it, though it was difficult to tell where Izzy stood on the matter. She hadn’t spoken more than a few words directly to him since that night, but she continued to be friendly with her sisters, Hunter, and Gerard. Frank hoped that she would come back to him with time, and he gave her as much space as he could give his eleven-year-old without giving her so much freedom she might get in trouble.

One night, he was reading in bed after he tucked the girls into bed, there was a knock at his half-open door. When Frank looked up, he was surprised to see Izzy and not Olly. He set his book aside and tried for a reassuring smile.

“Hey, Iz.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

Izzy had grown up calling him Daddy, but these days she only used the name when she wanted to butter him up. Given the tension that had existed between them for the past few weeks, the name was a good sign, and his smile blossomed into a grin.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I was thinking. You know how we’re all supposed to give each other presents for Christmas?”

“Uh huh.”

“I know what I want to give Olly, but I don’t know how to wrap it.”

“Well, I can probably help with that. What is it?”

Izzy pulled the item in question out from behind her back, and he shook his head as soon as he recognized it as Nat’s sweatshirt.

“No, Iz. You should keep this.”

“Why? Olly’s not going to ruin it. I want her to have it. Mom would have wanted me to share it.”

Frank huffed out a small laugh, unable to help himself. She wasn’t wrong; Nat would have loved Izzy sharing with her little sisters.

“You’re probably right.” He gingerly took the sweatshirt from her, examining it. The logo was just as worn as he remembered it, and the hole in the sleeve was stitched with thread that was just a shade darker than the faded fabric. “Are you sure you’re ready to pass this on?”

“I’m sure.” She nodded, seeming far more mature than Frank expected her to. Sometimes he forgot just how much time had passed, and how much Izzy had grown through everything. “Olly can keep it for awhile and then give it to Gemma. We can make it a tradition or something.”

Frank grinned, wide and bright.

“We can put it in a box with some tissue paper, and then wrap that guy. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds good.”

He set the sweatshirt on his lap and patted the bed next to him. Izzy didn’t hesitate before sitting down, scooting close to him and putting her head on his shoulder.

“I’m proud of you, Iz.”

Izzy wrinkled her nose up at that, and Frank had to grin. She was about as good at taking compliments as Frank was, and he hoped that it was just a phase for her and not a permanent fixture of her personality like it was for him.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and when he pulled away, she was frowning.

“What’s the matter?”

Izzy started to chew at her lip as she worked up to whatever was bugging her, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from rushing her.

“Dad, are you going to forget about Mom now that you have a new boyfriend?”

“What? Izzy, no.”

“He is your boyfriend, though. Gerard.”

Frank sighed. The two of them had had a conversation where they’d decided to properly be together, but they’d planned to keep it quiet for awhile. They hadn’t even told the kids, knowing that there wasn’t a single one of them that could keep a secret. The privacy was fine, except that Frank was so excited about Gerard he felt he might explode if he didn’t talk about their relationship to someone soon. He just hadn’t expected that person to be Izzy, especially not after how long she’d been giving him the cold shoulder.

“Yeah, Iz. He’s my boyfriend. But that doesn’t mean I’m ever gonna forget about your mom. I was in love with her for a really long time, and she gave me you. I could never, ever forget her.”

For a long moment, Izzy stared down at the bedspread, and when she finally looked up at him, her eyes were wet with tears.

“I’m really sorry I said that thing about Mom to you. I don’t want you to go either, and I don’t wish you had died, and I didn’t say anything because I felt guilty and you were so happy with Gerard and Hunter around and I thought bringing it up would make you mad again and I’m just really sorry.”

As she spoke, Izzy grew more and more upset, until she was so beside herself that he could barely understand what she was saying. The sentiment was there, though, and Frank felt awful for not realizing she’d been holding onto so much sadness by herself for the past few weeks.

“Shhh.” Frank rubbed her shoulder and started to rock her a little, just like he had when she was really little. He was half-expecting her to protest or pull away, but she just let him soothe her. “I know, baby. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s okay.”

Izzy turned to cry against his shoulder, and he kept rocking her, holding her close so she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. He muttered soothing noises and rubbed her back, and eventually she sat up, wiping at her face.

“I just miss her.”

“I know, Iz. You’re allowed to miss her, for the rest of forever.”

“Yeah. I know,” she replied, nodding. “I probably will.”

“She’d be proud of you, too, you know.”

“Yeah,” she replied, turning to look away, and Frank leaned against her for a second to get her attention.

“I love you, Izzy.”

“I know. I love you too, Dad.”

The two of them sat there in silence until Izzy fell asleep on Frank’s shoulder, and he carried her to her bed like he had hundreds of times in her life. One day soon, he wouldn’t be able to, but for now, he could manage.

* * *

The last get together before the holidays was just a few days before Christmas, and Gerard was thrilled that the rotation meant it would be at Frank’s house. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Mikey’s apartment or Ray’s house, but Frank’s house was the biggest, and the Iero girls had put up Christmas decorations everywhere. It felt festive and that was something they could all use a bit more of.

The dads had decided to do a name swap so that everyone could open presents, since that was definitely the most exciting part for the kids. Hunter had drawn Izzy’s name, which was perfect because Gerard had already wanted to get her a sketchbook and some pencils. He knew that she wrote in a journal, but he had a feeling that drawing might be able to help her, too, just like it had helped him. Earlier that week, he’d taken Hunter to the art store and helped him pick out a sketchbook with a black rhinestone cover, and together they had wrapped it. Hunter had put four bows on just the one present, grinning when Gerard praised his artistic flair. He made a mental note to use a lot of bows when he wrapped Hunter’s big Christmas present, a massive dragon Lego set which had been safely hidden in his closet for a month.

Gerard had drawn Frank’s name in the swap, and that had been a little more difficult, but eventually he had figured out what to make. He only had a week to design, draw, and ink, so he let his work projects sit on the backburner while he focused on Frank’s poster. He finished it early Thursday morning, leaving him plenty of time to frame and wrap it.

By the time Friday rolled around, Gerard found himself almost as excited as the kids. Since it was technically a party, Frank made homemade lasagna. The dish was a hit, both the veggie and meat versions, which Gerard had never been worried about even if Frank was. It was the first time Frank had made his Nonna’s famous lasagna, but it had turned out perfectly. There weren’t even any leftovers to save or send home, which was impressive because there had been a lot of food.

The kids insisted on exchanging presents right after dinner, even before pie, which Gerard was completely on board with. He was practically shaking from nerves, wanting to know what Frank thought of the poster already. Once everyone found a seat, Izzy directed the present distribution, reading the name tags and letting Olly and Hunter deliver them around the room. They went around the circle, taking turns opening their presents, and Gerard thought he would burst from having to wait for Frank’s turn. The kids were just as excited to give each other presents as they were to open them, which in Gerard’s opinion meant that they were all doing a pretty great job at the parenting thing. Noah gave Hunter a real life version of the Angry Birds game, with blocks to build his own towers for the pigs and a little plastic slingshot, and the Toro boys practically climbed over each other in their excitement to explain how it worked and how they’d picked out his present together. When it was Gerard’s turn, he thanked Ray profusely for his mint condition vintage typewriter before turning to Frank.

“Go on, go on. Open it.”

Frank looked at him and laughed, lifting his present from where it leaned against his leg.

“Jeez, I wonder who had my name.” For a moment Frank pretended to move in slow-motion, which Gerard did not appreciate _at all_ , only moving at normal speed when Gerard practically whined for him to hurry up. “Alright, I’m going. Damn, I thought you were the patient one.”

Gerard didn’t even respond, he was too busy focusing on Frank’s face as he ripped the paper away to reveal the framed poster. He watched Frank’s eyes wander over it, taking everything in.

Gerard had drawn a superhero poster in the traditional style, but the superheroes were Frank and his kids. Frank was in the middle with a giant ‘I’ on his chest for Iero, all of the girls around him, drawn to look like they were jumping out of the picture. Gerard had even included Nat in the corner, looking down on them all and smiling. He had colluded with Izzy on that one, having to get a picture since he had no idea what she looked like.

For a long moment, Frank was speechless, just staring down at the poster. Though the kids had been distracted showing each other their own presents, they eventually seemed to notice that Frank hadn’t shown everyone his own present. They all crowded around the chair he was in, trying to see what he was looking at. When Frank finally looked up at him, Gerard could see the tears in his eyes, and he grinned.

“Thank you, Gerard. This is… I can’t even tell you. It’s incredible.”

Gerard didn’t think it was possible for his grin to get wider, but it did. He looked over at Ray and Mikey, and both of them were grinning back. Both of them had already seen it; Mikey had walked in right after Gerard finished it, and then texted Ray a picture of the completed poster.

“Daddy!” The high-pitched exclamation was unexpected, so all of the dads turned to see the one kid not drawn in by Frank’s poster. Gemma stood on the armchair next to the window, pointing outside. “Look.”

Gerard watched as Frank got up to see what she was talking about.

“Oh, look at that, Gem. It’s snowing.”

“Snowing?”

The kids all abandoned the poster, rushing towards the window to see the snow. Ray and Mikey followed until everyone was standing at the window, everyone except for Izzy. She had taken her dad’s seat and was cradling the frame in her lap, staring down at it. She looked up at Gerard after a moment, seeming to sense his eyes on her, and she grinned with the same smile as her dad.

After returning Izzy’s smile, Gerard got up and joined everyone else at the window. It was dark, but Frank’s front porch light reflected off of the snow as it started to land on the ground. The window was low enough that all the kids could see it, too, and Gerard had to laugh as Noah immediately tried to convince Ray to let him go outside and play in it.

Gerard moved to stand next to Frank, who was staring out the window. He heard Frank mutter something sarcastic about Christmas magic, shaking his head and turning to look at Gerard. For a moment, they just stared at each other, the warm brightness in Gerard’s chest growing until he had to grin and put his arm around Frank’s shoulders.

“Merry Christmas, Frank.”

Frank beamed back at him, the smile making Gerard’s heart ache.

“Merry Christmas, Gerard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know where to start. This fic has ruled my life for the better part of a year. To finally get it out there for people to read is something I was afraid would never happen, and yet, here we are.
> 
> I owe my thanks to very many people.
> 
> Firstly, to my wife, Lindsey: you are so incredibly patient with my writing and frustration and obsession. You're the best, and I could not ask for a better partner.
> 
> Secondly, to the best beta in the whole world, Bethany: you are incredible, and you said it yourself -- while I wrote the gem, it was you who polished it, and I could not have made it through to publishing without all of your hard work. You are so good at what you do.
> 
> Thirdly, to the mods of the challenge. It's a rough time to organize everything, but you've done it again and there is so much more art and beauty in the world because of your time and attention. All the kudos to you.
> 
> Honorable mentions go to everyone on the CalWrimos and Steve the WriMo discords (who kept me sane for the last four weeks of speed-writing), to everyone who ever asked questions about this fic when I was begging for attention, to [sangrientojoe](http://sangrientojoe.tumblr.com/) and [dizzy-xo-hurricane](http://dizzy-xo-hurricane.tumblr.com/) who read the half-finished fic and reassured me that it didn't suck, and to anyone who reblogged that post I made about the MCR guys as dads.
> 
> Lastly, I want to thank anyone who reads this behemoth. You are wonderful and I appreciate each and every moment of the time you spend reading my writing. You deserve all of the love.
> 
> xoxo - mousefrnk ♡


End file.
